For the record remove the ## from quotes, it messes up searching for votes.

Oops, yeah.

Wow, some people take things way too seriously. Squiggs, Bo, are you seriously going to think that I'm voting for Chaqa because I think he's making some sort of crazy ploy, I'm voting for him because right now I have nothing but flavor to go off of, and Chaqa called himself scum.

Also, how is Chaqa a favorite? That makes no sense at all to me. Did I miss some votes other than Chaqa on him? Why are you jumping on this of all things? Honestly, this seems like the scummiest thing so far.

So right now, I find WD's vote scummy, Chaqa's shenanigans more or less scummy, and uclabbs early contributions townie. Krellin has posted a decent amount, but hasnt said a whole lot yet, so it is hard to tell on him. Bo comes off as very slight town to me, because he seems motivated in scum hunting and is taking some of the discussions seriously, which is a big improvement from last game. No one else has posted anything worthwhile yet. Everything I just said will probably change over the next day, but I feel like the town should post reads early and often, so there you go.

The reason I find your vote scummy right now WD is because it is an easy vote. You didnt do any work whatsoever, you literally just followed Chaqa's command. Town should use their vote wisely, and throwing it on Chaqa this early is not wise, especially when you dont put in any reasoning into it.
I may be analyzing things too much, but what else do we have to go on right now?? If you can point out something better, please do, and I would be happy to discuss it with you.

Lol, anything would be an improvement over last game. As long as ghug stays off my case - he can literally turn anything into an indefensible case, it's half scary and half impressive.

WD, you cast an actual vote. If you don't seriously think he's scum, unvote. Get a case going for us and maybe we can learn to trust your instinct a little.

"I'm voting for him because right now I have nothing but flavor to go off of, and Chaqa called himself scum."

If you have nothing but flavor to go off of right now, then why vote at all?? Chaqa calling himself scum is not IMO a good reason to vote him. If you feel differently, please state your reasoning for why.

##Vote Chaqa because (a) I can't vote for YellowJacket and (b) he has been given a VANilla role he doesn't like ( if he is to be believed) so we should put him out of his misery early. We need vanilla players who love that role.

When is the deadline btw?

Love the concept of finding mutants.

Greetings fellows. Let's hope we can weed out those reptiles and mutants before the world is overrun. If scum is going to rule the world it should at least be regular human scum.

Now on to some initial reads:

Chaqa: He is acting crazy early on. Nothing new here. Probably just vanilla trying to add some spice to his role. Could still be scum. Hell, anyone but me can be scum as far as I am concerned.

Squigs: Has seemed genuinely interested in appearing town, which is usually good. Yet, I am concerned that he has shown interest in figuring out who the power roles are. Possible scum tell here as no vanilla townie needs to figure out who has a power role.

krellin: what's up with the no vote thing? that does not look townie at all. Also, fluff conversation in p3. Care to explain your reasons for no vote? Misfiring still gives more information than no kill.

uclabb: I really do not understand your WIFOM complaints, I know you are mad at how it was used in M3, but I still think that should be discussed if a situation arises where WIFOM is not helping. My take on it is that either you are scum trying to give weight to nightkills because you intend to target randomly, that you are the mutant trying to throw us townies off your scent or that you are town. Which basically means nothing. Either way you later do a very townie thing by actually posting some analysis, so really nothing to go on just yet.

WD: I think too much is being read on his early Chaqa vote. Would like to see a better explanation for why CHaqa looks scummy to him but still think he should be given a small break. From experience, I have seen that mafia are usually more careful with their early votes than some townies.

The rest of you who have posted I have not seen enough from to get any kind of reads

Maniac, killing a vanilla townie is never a good thing... even a no lynch is better than lynching someone that you think is town. Your vote is only justifiable if you think that Chaqa really is mafia. Please either remove your vote from the Chaqa BW that has somehow started, or explain the case for why Chaqa is mafia. Until then, you are my new top scum read for voting someone that you say is a vanilla townie.

"Squigs: Has seemed genuinely interested in appearing town, which is usually good. Yet, I am concerned that he has shown interest in figuring out who the power roles are. Possible scum tell here as no vanilla townie needs to figure out who has a power role."

Where do I show interest in figuring out who the power roles are?? The only references I have made to power roles are that I think that power roles should only reveal if absolutely necessary, and should try to avoid it more so than last game, that I think that Bo probably isnt SK (is SK a power role?), and that I asked if the Vig should try to kill lurkers. I honestly dont know what you mean by "figuring out who the power roles are". Can you post quotations of where I do that??

Can I get a deeper explanation on the meaning of WIFOM? I thought I had a real understanding of it but I'm not sure now.

Seriously, bo, and Squiggs, chillax with the attack on jokes. That's going to kill the fun of the game and it never bears out into the later phases anyways. Jokes in day 1 are no more scummy than jokes at any other point in the game. No vote placed this early in the day matters, and attacking people for using votes to add to the flavor of the game.

I know this is directed at Maniac, but things like "Your vote is only justifiable if you think that Chaqa really is mafia," do NOTHING to help reveal these lizards, because the lizards have to treat every accusation as serious, but we humans need not be so worried, because we have the advantage of numbers. For the invaders, even a single loss could be devastating, while for us, it is only a minor setback.

I don't know, maybe I'm just tired and not thinking straight, but I fail to see anything wrong with leaving my vote on Chaqa for the time being. Votes are flexible, and he's in precisely the same amount of danger as the rest of us, regardless of my vote being on him.

WIFOM is a reference from the Princess Bride in which one person places poison in one of two wine glasses and tells the other he can keep the wine closest to him or furthest. Basically it is a reference to a situation in which you can not be sure whether someone did what was expected of them (usually beneficial) or what was least expected of them. It applies to nightkills in that you dont know if the mafia decided to kill the townies that are trying to lynch them, or if they decided to kill the townies that are trying to lynch others in an attempt to frame the others. Basically you are saying that the motivations of the scum are unknown because they are going to be taking into account what is expected of them.

@bo - I had never heard of WIFOM until the last game. I think of it in poker terms. In most poker situations there is an optimum play. But always playing that way becomes sub-optimal because everyone will know what range of hands you have based on your actions. Therefore you have to play sub optimally (bluff/ double bluff) in some hands to throw off the other players. Off course they know that the game can only be won by bluffing sometimes so they will call sometimes when they shouldn't . Poor players will call way too often, always thinking their opponents could be bluffing, whereas in reality bluffing is actually quite rare. People genuinely play straight up, most of the time. When I read people I start with accepting they are playing straight up and need something more than 'sometimes' people bluff to make me consider they are varying their play. Hope this helps?

WD, if your internet goes out and you miss the rest of the day, don't say we didn't try.

Thanks Squigs. I still say that nightkills provide an opportunity to divulge information, and if it turns out that we're wrong in our analysis of the kills, the trends will show themselves before too long. Besides, in the situation that uclabb referenced where he was killed before the claimed cop, there's absolutely no doubt that we could have easily sniffed out the last mafia member in M3 from that move alone had we noticed. It sounds to me like it just comes down to whether the collective is confident enough that they're smarter than the mafia, so I agree with uclabb - if the nightkills show us something, let's discuss it, and if we can't find holes, let's use what we find. If it's unclear what the mafia are trying to do with the nightkills or if the trends don't add up, maybe we can reconsider how much knowledge we can actually gain from them.

@squiggs - I never said chaqa was vanilla townie, I said he said he was vanilla townie. We are likely to hit a town anyway and if so I'd sooner hit one that isn't going to play for the team. Cut out the deadwood early. Not removing my vote just because I'm your top scum read.

@warden agree with warden, that losing a townie would only be a minor setback.

"Seriously, bo, and Squiggs, chillax with the attack on jokes. That's going to kill the fun of the game and it never bears out into the later phases anyways. Jokes in day 1 are no more scummy than jokes at any other point in the game. No vote placed this early in the day matters, and attacking people for using votes to add to the flavor of the game."

How am I supposed to know when you are joking and when you are not. You could be completely serious and then when someone calls you out on it, you could claim that you were just joking. I am fine with joking for the most part, but placing your vote on someone is no joke. I completely understand why someone town would do this, but I dont like it when people dont take their votes seriously, so I am going to call them out on it. You say that no vote this early in the game matters, but I disagree. Captainmeme placed a bad vote early, and was partially lynched for it last game. I think that every vote matters.

"I know this is directed at Maniac, but things like "Your vote is only justifiable if you think that Chaqa really is mafia," do NOTHING to help reveal these lizards, because the lizards have to treat every accusation as serious, but we humans need not be so worried, because we have the advantage of numbers. For the invaders, even a single loss could be devastating, while for us, it is only a minor setback."

Humans do have to take every accusation seriously. Accusations and votes are the only power that they have, so I would say that they almost have to give more weight and meaning to accusations than scum. My comment does do something to help catch scum if Maniac is scum and is taking an easy vote. Joking, however, does NOTHING to help catch scum, but you seem insistent that it is fine.

I do agree with your final point, though, that your vote is flexible and that there is plenty of time to the deadline, and I probably am reading into these votes too much. But advocating that joking around and not justifying your accusations is okay is pro-scum and anti-town, so please stop doing so.

@Maniac ... Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. A lot of players bluff a lot more than I do though when I play cards, and in my experiences, after the rest of the players (or even one player) catches on to a single bluff, it's incredibly difficult to bluff again and get away with it.

It's not crazy to go on instinct either, I don't think. As in cards, following your analogy again, sometimes you can make a play on your gut and then try to read your opponents' eyes and see if they'll reveal something as a result of your own play. In our case, trying to divulge what we can out of nightkills gives us an opportunity to see if the mafia will make a mistake and reveal their hand to us, and by simply playing a hand we get that opportunity even if we make the wrong play.

Please, Maniac, don't settle on lynching someone you think is a townie just because it won't be a big loss. We're a hell of a lot better off taking a stab at someone that we think could be scum because that gives us a huge, HUGE early advantage. If we're wrong, we come out the same as we do if we simply cut out a seemingly uninterested townie. If we're right, it's a big win for us.

Besides, I don't think Chaqa is uninterested. I see him as someone that will contribute more before the day is out.

@Maniac -

"(b) he has been given a VANilla role he doesn't like ( if he is to be believed) so we should put him out of his misery early. We need vanilla players who love that role."

You stated that he was given a vanilla role, not that he said that. Whatever, that doesnt matter.

"We are likely to hit a town anyway and if so I'd sooner hit one that isn't going to play for the team."

Although we may be likely to hit a town anyway, I think that we have a better chance on hitting scum if we vote for who we think is our top scum read than if we vote off dead weight. It is the same reason that we do not vote off lurkers on day 1. If the day is starting to wrap up, and Chaqa is our top scum read, then lets vote him out. Until then, lets make cases for why people are scum, point inconsistencies out and discuss things. Placing your vote on someone and not discussing with the rest of the town is a pro-scum action, because you dont contribute to finding scum.

So, I am fine with you keeping your vote on Chaqa, as long as you are actively posting a case for why he, or anyone else is scum, and as long as Chaqa remains your top scum-read. So far, I dont think that you have posted reasoning as to why he is your top scum-read. Once you do so, it will give us more stuff to discuss.

@guak- "I really do not understand your WIFOM complaints"

Great! What don't you understand? I posted that precisely because I want to get the town on the same page. Maniac actually gave a pretty good explanation with his analogy of poker, just as poker players usually don't bluff, the mafia is usually going to kill someone who is a threat to them, so we need to think carefully about who they kill and not dismiss such thought as WIFOM without even thinking about what that means.

As far as unsubstantiated (or weakly substantiated) votes go, I'm pretty much 100% behind them as a reaction test if nothing else. Last game the first bit of suspicion that led us to catching Warden was due to his (over)reaction to some joke posts and the same can be said for pj in M2. I think it's a little bold to draw the same analogy here and say that Squigs's reaction is scummy as I again think it's in line with how he was acting last game, but it's something to remember.

WIFOM is never really valid as a discussion killer. I think of it like Diplomacy - for example, when Italy moves to Piedmonte in '01 and both France and Italy have to guess whether or not their opponent will move into Marseilles. Theoretically it's WIFOM and you'd be best just going random, but there's always external factors - if you know more or less how your opponent thinks you can make an educated guess as to what he will do, and you can also make a judgement as France based around Italy's relations with others and whether he would want to play it off as being defensive, which he could not do if he moved in.

In mafia it's harder to think about what your opponent would do, as you don't know who they are. However, you can generalise and think about what the average mafia member would do. You could also think about what you would do in that situation as mafia. WIFOM means that evidence is less reliable, yes, but it does not completely invalidate it and you should still appraise it.

Anyway, I don't think this is a problem yet. WIFOM hasn't really arisen on day one in any game (iirc) outside of voting bandwagons, which haven't formed here yet.


I don't think Chaqa should be construed as mafia from his early vote for himself. He seems to play like this - I think it was mafia II where he tried to cause a tied vote by changing his vote at the last minute, not out of thinking that it would be best for the town, but rather because he was trying to make the game interesting for himself with no regard for personal safety. This play seems similar, and he was a town member in that game. Obviously this argument does not provide evidence that he is not mafia, but rather is saying that his actions do not provide evidence for him being mafia. I hope that's understandable.


I'm not going to try to form an early bandwagon this game, given that I completely misread it last game (I figured that the way YJ was bandwagoned on meant that they were innocent, which was untrue) so I'm now more unsure of my ability to pull information from the results. However, I do disagree with a no-lynch, as this gives us even less information that a bandwagon would, and would also decrease the number of town aligned kills.

Just to put that last point into perspective; assuming the doctor saves nobody, the mutant survives into the endgame and discounting the vigilante, this game lasts a maximum of 5 days (depending on how many of the lynches/mutant kills are mafia) - 3 people will be killed per phase; one during the day, two during the night. If we don't lynch on day one, this game still lasts, at maximum, 5 days, but with us having less information from day 1 and with no chance of a mafia's lynch on day 1.

5 days is not a lot of time. We need all the information early that we can get.

Hi all.

So, my thoughts on things generally.

1) This game is smaller than last by one townie. That means that if the town plays exactly as well as last time, it will lose. Last time, I thought the town played pretty well. The one drawback was that it got on some stupid bandwagons against fairly obvious townies, and thoughtless bandwagons against seeming scum on too-weak evidence. We need to be more disciplined or we will lose.

2) I agree with uclabb that WIFOM should never be dismissed arbitrarily. That said, it's absolutely a valuable concept that should be brought up, as the opposite is also a clear mistake that would give Mafia a certain winning strategy.

3) I DISagree with uclabb about last-minute voting. I thought it was almost uniformly valuable to the town. First, the power roles stuff. If late vote-changing causes a power role to reveal himself, a refusal to do it will make him even more likely. Last game, for example, guak only had to do so because he was not going to be on late, which was, if you like, a fluke, and not a very probable one.

But under uclabb's proposed strategy, EVERY power role who got a few votes would have to reveal immediately, because there would be no way to talk people off him late -- they would have resolved against late vote changing. This is, in my opinion, terrible.

Second, it actually undermines his WIFOM point. It's true that there was valuable data from Mafia voting and killing last game, but almost all of it was due to late-day voting and lobbying. Kill this, and WIFOM becomes, in my opinion, substantially less valuable. It is the need to act quickly under pressure that will most likely cause Mafia to make a mistake. If they have the whole first day to think, can come up with a single well-reasoned vote, and can then refuse to change because, "I buy uclabb's anti-late-voting argument," then they have cover for too-careful behavior. I think late voting is not only OK, it is extremely valuable.

4) I see simply nothing important in Chaqa's voting for himself, and I'm tired of talking about it. (Well, seeing others do so). I actually find Squigs's behavior concerning. He is playing a very different game from last time. He seems actively concerned about being perceived as mafia (which is bad in itself, and also different from last time). He also got, to my mind, very defensive very quickly when pushed just a little. Most probably, all this is just because his other behavior almost led to a bad result for town last time; but it bears watching.

On everybody else, I don't have much of a read yet. krellin is krellin. uclabb seems about as townie as last time, though I do think that his idea against late voting is a somewhat scummy idea. No read off Chaqa, Warden, bo_sox, Maniac, or pjmansfield. If I'm missing somebody, no read on them either.

And we're off. Hi all. First couple of comments from myself...

Krellin - I just don't get even bringing up the potential of a no lynch vote - we've discussed this ad nauseum but only way town wins is to correct the imbalance in information - only way to get information sadly is to kill people (and learn from night kills) This to me reads slightly scummy, having played with Krellin as Mafia before, he's very good at it and very intelligent and this just strikes me as an odd play to be throwing out so early. He may claim he was joking but I'm not sure.

Uclabb - as always dominating conversation and tactics early. Is he trying to put himself in the same position as PE, centre of the group and thereby securing the ability to try and manipulate people into where he wants? Again I think Uclabb is a very intelligent player, he's not wrong - he's had some very clear reads in the last few games (not that its usually helped him) and I think he certainly bears listening to. The concern is exactly like PE gives him an ideal background to be Mafia and finally he's not kidding about how angry he gets about WIFOM.

Squigs - For me, just reads same as last game, keen to discuss, very keen to play and just wants to chat. I can't read anything as scummy yet.

Chaqa - Who know's?!? Crazy bored, crazy killer? Not enough to go on yet.

Maniac - Never sure how to deal with his craziness - M3 he drove me mental... Nothing to go on yet.

Nothing really out there on anyone else yet...

Quick posts to date: Ghug 0, Y2 2, Chaqa 9, Krellin 15, semck 1, squib 31, maniac 3, capt 1, WD 4, Guak 1, Bo 15, Uclabb 20, PJ 1, ILN 0.

That's the quantity, as for quality. Chaqa C, krellin D-, semck C, squib D, maniac A+, capt C, WD C, Guak B, Bo C-, Uclabb B, PJ C. Ghug U, ILN U.

A few have started brightly, others really need to work on their grades. Letters will be going home to those who are absent.

@Maniac - out of curiousity which of your 3 posts, gains you an A+ for quality? Not got any good processes for us to change this time?

I was thinking of a system where we all have to tag vote. Ie I vote 1st then tag you, you vote and tag someone else else and we can keep going. But I think I'll keep it to myself as all my other super suggestions last time were too far ahead of their time for you guys to appreciate.

I think my poker post was A+ btw.