MAFIA 77: RETURN TO THE WEST [GAME THREAD] - [HIDDEN]

[ghug]

The larger problem is that I don’t understand if or why anyone thought Bo or Yav was scum. That makes it pretty easy for the bad guys to pretend to be town.

I thought both were decent shots, so I can try to answer.

We discussed bo before and you seemed to understand if not agree:
1. Bo has been active in discussions, but most of what he's done is find things to argue about. He nitpicks, he criticizes play choices, and he espouses mechanical opinions, but he spends very little time actually tying himself to thoughts on people's alignments.
1a. The time I've agreed with him most this game is around the discussion of mass-claiming. Obviously, you don't agree with us, but it's a smell when the best or most memorable opinions someone has are about mechanics and not scumhunting.
1b. Take the way he'd expressed no opinion about me at all until a wagon formed on me, and then suddenly he'd just been patiently waiting for someone else to share his scumread on me. Did that read exist before it was convenient for it to exist? There's clear scum benefit to playing that way, I don't see town benefit, and I know bo has behaved similarly as scum in the past.
2. His play around the night vote was extremely suspicious. He barely participated in the voting, he wasn't pushing the process, and he didn't vote for worcej. Then, hours later and without mass consensus, he was ready to hammer the guy who won with four votes, reads (or lack thereof) be damned.

Yav is less exciting. He was lurking and thus the best choice among my null reads. I don't really see what differentiated him from lfischl for people.

Reason 2 is why I suspect bo_sox, trying to enforce the vote for a gambler item is the kind of thing I would expect bo_sox to complain about, not participate in.

I thought yavuzovic's D1 vote justifications were questionable, I asked him about it early D2, and he later posted without addressing my question. Then he was gone for most of D2. I repeated my question when he showed up for EOD, and I liked his answer, because I had misinterpreted what he meant when he said he did not "like the votes" when he voted for damo. His explanation was that he did not like damo's votes, specifically damo's temporary vote for Chaqa. Looking at D1, I think he had a good point, damo said he voted for Chaqa based on Chaqa END voting, but then damo changed his vote when Chaqa moved his vote, which should not have necessarily made Chaqa END vote less suspicious. Also, there was no reason to take Chaqa's END vote seriously. yavuzovic indicated he thought damo might have been distance voting Chaqa, which I think was a reasonable theory.

What do you think of damo's handling of the night vote and subsequent hammer push?

[bozotheclown]

I thought both were decent shots, so I can try to answer.

We discussed bo before and you seemed to understand if not agree:
1. Bo has been active in discussions, but most of what he's done is find things to argue about. He nitpicks, he criticizes play choices, and he espouses mechanical opinions, but he spends very little time actually tying himself to thoughts on people's alignments.
1a. The time I've agreed with him most this game is around the discussion of mass-claiming. Obviously, you don't agree with us, but it's a smell when the best or most memorable opinions someone has are about mechanics and not scumhunting.
1b. Take the way he'd expressed no opinion about me at all until a wagon formed on me, and then suddenly he'd just been patiently waiting for someone else to share his scumread on me. Did that read exist before it was convenient for it to exist? There's clear scum benefit to playing that way, I don't see town benefit, and I know bo has behaved similarly as scum in the past.
2. His play around the night vote was extremely suspicious. He barely participated in the voting, he wasn't pushing the process, and he didn't vote for worcej. Then, hours later and without mass consensus, he was ready to hammer the guy who won with four votes, reads (or lack thereof) be damned.

Yav is less exciting. He was lurking and thus the best choice among my null reads. I don't really see what differentiated him from lfischl for people.

Reason 2 is why I suspect bo_sox, trying to enforce the vote for a gambler item is the kind of thing I would expect bo_sox to complain about, not participate in.

I thought yavuzovic's D1 vote justifications were questionable, I asked him about it early D2, and he later posted without addressing my question. Then he was gone for most of D2. I repeated my question when he showed up for EOD, and I liked his answer, because I had misinterpreted what he meant when he said he did not "like the votes" when he voted for damo. His explanation was that he did not like damo's votes, specifically damo's temporary vote for Chaqa. Looking at D1, I think he had a good point, damo said he voted for Chaqa based on Chaqa END voting, but then damo changed his vote when Chaqa moved his vote, which should not have necessarily made Chaqa END vote less suspicious. Also, there was no reason to take Chaqa's END vote seriously. yavuzovic indicated he thought damo might have been distance voting Chaqa, which I think was a reasonable theory.

What do you think of damo's handling of the night vote and subsequent hammer push?

damo did not post N1, and it is not uncharacteristic for damo to be willing to hammer. damo actively recruiting END votes looks questionable, though.

[bozotheclown]

Assuming worcej and BB are telling the truth there is only a 25% chance we have a gambler anyway. So, no more of this night voting bollocks.

Sorry you have had to claim worcej, it's bad luck but when you topped the night vote it was kind of inevitable.

##vote bo

What was the reason for this bo_sox vote that lasted one minute?

[KoalaAttack]

##GM ANSWER
KA comments/asks: Especially given that the role you claim is the Doctor. BTW, a question for the group and/or GMs – is it intentional on the part of Game Rules that Doctor and Quack Doctor are named like that so a Quack Doctor I could 100% honestly claim Doctor simply without mentioning that they are also a duck?

The GM's will not comment on the intentions, secret motivations, plans for stuff, or purpose of "Game Rules." Other than to provide a delightful guessing game of epic proportions.

Hah, fair enough! Thank you!

[KoalaAttack]

Does the fact that we didn't meet the conditions for follow-through matter?

Those conditions weren't consistent from person to person, but several of us weren't interested in the binding vote if we didn't get full participation during the night, which we didn't.

The way I see it, it's either democracy or Animal Farm. I have zero interest in Animal Farm.

And if it's a democracy, I would say we had the majority for the plan last night, so I would expect the minority to follow-through despite their personal disagreement. I would (well, Mafia-me probably wouldn't for obvious reasons). Note that I wasn't pushing for the binding vote plan. I simply saw that more that half of the people have voted during the night – pretty clear majority in my eyes.

This game is absolutely more animal farm than democracy. The pigs (mafia) are gaining more power the longer the animals (town) squabble and not organize to fight back.

The pigs are sacrificing an animal each night until they have all the power themselves, and then they win.

Let me rephrase to make it more clear.

I, in-character Townie Koala, have zero interest in running our Town as an Animal Farm. I prefer democracy

Me the player behind this character does indeed realize that Mafia is Animal Farm like as a game on the meta level.

[KoalaAttack]

Both of my plans were optimal plays. But we have to work as a group or not at all, and we have some combination of town players playing sub-optimally and scum players.

In any event, a herd of cats cannot build a cat condo, even if it advisable that they do.

Except even you yourself switched. Think of this as a leadership exercise. You stepped up as a mini-leader to propose a plan of action. You definitely had some folks follow you, myself included. Sure, you might still not have the whole town behind you. But you have at least a few people who have agreed to vote in bulk. And then you turn around and not follow through yourself, therefore immediately undermining any momentum the group was getting? Suspicious on many levels.

On many levels!?

Oh no, what are the levels?

Replace with your favorite adjective for flavor to say "strongly suspicious".

[KoalaAttack]

Thanks for playing, yav.

Koala, what made you decide to show up for end of day after all?

bet he was lurking the whole time

You could have broken the tie in the other direction if you found it so questionable.

Nope, just catching up now and responding properly as you can see. But of course I have no way to prove it to you.

[KoalaAttack]

Question for the more experienced folks – would it be reasonable to assume at at least a couple Mafia are voting for these front-runners?

I think it's reasonable to assume that there's mafia in the voters, but more because most players are in the voters. If it's town v town, you often see a lot of scum on one-vote vanity wagons because they're avoiding getting their hands dirty. Town v scum it's less clear.

Thank you

[KoalaAttack]

Sorry man. Koala's fault

Koala fucking coming out of nowhere to protect bo

Can Koala lose some town posts now? That was a fucking awful move EoD2

Honestly mate, if you are indeed Mafia you are over-doing it. Just kill me and be done with it.

And if you are Town, it's simply not very smart – it's a silly forum game. What impact do you reckon your posts have on me? "On my side of the net", so to speak? What are you trying to accomplish?

I'm not frustrated or anything. It's more like... have you ever seen a little puppy that runs after a bigger dog going bark bark bark – and the other is kind of like "eye-roll, I'm just gonna completely ignore that kid from now on". That's about the effect you have now achieved. My ears are now closed to anything you say, psychologically. You called it "tunneling" but it's a basic communication skill, or a lack of thereof.

And your ears being closed to me isn’t new and I’ll care more about appeasing you if you actually stick around and play more than a couple games.

But get used to me if you do stay - you’re going to get a lot of my low EQ in some games sometimes.

It doesn't rattle me, but I happen to be a very experienced people manager. Most folks won't be.

The reason I chose to post the above is because I seem to remember you saying something along the lines of "a bunch of folks don't play on here because of me anymore, and I don't think that's a good thing" ... which kinda felt like relevant introspection ... but this latest version is more "loud & proud" about it – either way, whatever floats your boat. It's a game, everyone should play however they enjoy the most.

[KoalaAttack]

And your ears being closed to me isn’t new

Not true – I have been listening to everything you said. You just haven't convinced me. Those are two different things.

[KoalaAttack]

Hooray – all caught up!

Time to role-play Koala some more – I know at least one person who absolutely loves it.

Sleepy Koala wakes up, catches up on all the town conversations, and a sudden realization dawns upon them that they are unlikely to wake up again in the morning.

So in the case this happens, Koala write the town a note requesting to please think long & hard about their suggested Mafia suspects – worcej, ghug, and to much lesser degree BunnyGo – upon confirmation of their Townie identity.

Koala writes a second note that he hangs above his bed: "You are a Koala Killer – remember this shameful fact for the rest of your life!"

Then Koala queues up Enter Sandman on Spotify (he has a TARDIS, deal with it) and goes back to sleep.

[rdrivera2005]

[quote=ghug post_id=325023 time=1674281884 user_id=51]
[quote="Balki Bartokomous" post_id=325022 time=1674280188 user_id=922]
The larger problem is that I don’t understand if or why anyone thought Bo or Yav was scum. That makes it pretty easy for the bad guys to pretend to be town.
[/quote]

I thought both were decent shots, so I can try to answer.

We discussed bo before and you seemed to understand if not agree:
1. Bo has been active in discussions, but most of what he's done is find things to argue about. He nitpicks, he criticizes play choices, and he espouses mechanical opinions, but he spends very little time actually tying himself to thoughts on people's alignments.
1a. The time I've agreed with him most this game is around the discussion of mass-claiming. Obviously, you don't agree with us, but it's a smell when the best or most memorable opinions someone has are about mechanics and not scumhunting.
1b. Take the way he'd expressed no opinion about me at all until a wagon formed on me, and then suddenly he'd just been patiently waiting for someone else to share his scumread on me. Did that read exist before it was convenient for it to exist? There's clear scum benefit to playing that way, I don't see town benefit, and I know bo has behaved similarly as scum in the past.
2. His play around the night vote was extremely suspicious. He barely participated in the voting, he wasn't pushing the process, and he didn't vote for worcej. Then, hours later and without mass consensus, he was ready to hammer the guy who won with four votes, reads (or lack thereof) be damned.

Yav is less exciting. He was lurking and thus the best choice among my null reads. I don't really see what differentiated him from lfischl for people.
[/quote]

About Bo, the most relevant scumtell I remember of him is shading people to get a later misskill. I didn't see much of this on this game and that's why I didn't put him on my scum bucket. But also didn't see anything to include him on a town bucket.

About Yav, I think the only difference between him and lfischl to me is that there was already a wagon on him and I don't like the other wagons.

[rdrivera2005]

Also, shouldn't we consider massclaiming at EON before scum could know the night results?

[Chaqa]

I'm sorry but I can't let this go. Who the fuck only gets pico?

I haven’t been to a chipotle in awhile so I cannot remember the topping options anymore

There's a corn salsa and two (medium/hot) pureed salsas. And then like lettuce and sour cream and guac and I think they have queso now?

I'm not a huge fan of corn in things. The salsas are fine, but they're messy and I don't like them getting everywhere. Same reason I don't usually do sour cream.

[Chaqa]

Pico is lovely when it's nice and fresh or paired with additional salsa.

Considering it’s a fast food chain, I imagine it’s meh

Precisely

Chipotle isn't fast food, and their pico is pretty good. Better than the stuff you get from the grocery store, worse than what you'd make at home.

[Chaqa]

I have D&D today but I'll do my best to my make an EoN post. Probably, unironically, from the grocery store.

[worcej]

Also, shouldn't we consider massclaiming at EON before scum could know the night results?

I’m in the camp of we should have done it during the day to prevent some coordination by scum now, but that’s just me.

[worcej]

I have D&D today but I'll do my best to my make an EoN post. Probably, unironically, from the grocery store.

Please for the love of god abandon WotC’s product due to their crusade against the OGL and VTTs

[ghug]

Also, shouldn't we consider massclaiming at EON before scum could know the night results?

Why would we massclaim?

[Balki Bartokomous]

My current scum team is BunnyGo, ghug, and Lfischl.

“Because they are less active” is no longer a good reason to kill a player next phase (assuming that it ever was).

Regarding claims: note that we don’t have any sort of Cop in this game, and our trackers/watchers are weakened by scum roles that can avoid detection or screw with our results. For these reasons, we don’t have much in the way of investigative role skills. I think our PRs are most useful in the context of a mass claim to narrow down the puzzle.