Strategic Thoughts from Players

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Sachertorte (Yoshi) sent this one:

But a really really cute one.

I have so much to say and yet I don't want to post it to the game thread. This is my first time as a Third Party and I'm liking it (mostly) so far. I like that I don't care what town does as long as they don't lynch me. I like that I don't care what scum does as long as they don't kill me. The only thing I don't like is that I have to hold my tongue. I don't want to point out all the stuff that I find scummy because the usual town reaction to that is to lynch me. I also don't want to point out who is scum, because scum like to kill me when I do that.

Aggggrrrh. I guess I'll have to be an introspective dino and talk to myself.
Here is what I would be saying if I were vanilla Town:

Point on Kat: Day One Page 2, Kat laments the need for math in voting. Could be scum as scum are the only ones who really need to worry about math. Town does not need to be mindful of the sum totals. In fact, KidV advocates that Town vote based on perceptions not on the vote totals. Kat's feeling that she needs to do math runs counter to this. Possible scum in Kat. Though I rank this as a very weak indicator.

Point on Roxis:
Day 1 Page 3 reply #71: "Either way, I don't think we should be too hung up on what trophyphying means just now, except that we know it's bad for town."
How does Roxis know that trophy-ificaiton is bad for town? I don't know this. For all I know a Townie (Vig) can Trophy-fy players. The only way Roxis could know that Trophy-ification is bad for town is if she is privy to the knowledge of who can perform the trophy action.
I think Roxis is scum. If I were a Vig, Roxis would be so dead.

I don't really want to go after scum in this game. But it is in my nature to do so. I'll probably get lynched or nightkilled for it, but oh well. At least I don't have to get frustrated when Town makes boneheaded moves.

Oh, and I'm wondering whether or not it is a good idea to turn scum into eggs. I can see the case where scum might be more likely to be able to break out of eggs since if I were to encase several scum, that would be quite debilitating to scum. But I also think it possible that egg-immunity is evenly spread between town and scum. Traditional SK's could kill multiple scum as well and that's just part of the game. Part of me wants to avoid egging scum out of fear of broken shells, but that is probably silly of me. Not that I'm sure who is scum and not scum anyway! I think I'll egg someone who is lurking.

[flyingcowofdoom]

Wow, he's got a bead on Kat already. I find the idea of "egging" the scum intentionally to be interesting.

--FCOD

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Again, from Sachertorte:

Decisions.

I would really love for town to rip into someone for what they have said. I've already mentioned posts by Kat and by Roxis that could be fodder for a nice bandwagon, but no one is willing to start something. What gives? Surely some Townie knows that it is Town's job to get the ball rolling. The only reason I haven't stirred things up is that I'm third party and I don't want to die!
Which brings me to the conclusion that there are little to no vanilla Townies in this game so everyone thinks they are an important power role and needs to not die too. On the other hand, if there are vanilla Townies, they are doing a terrific job of looking like power roles.

So the question is, do I serve up Roxis or not. I was kind of hoping that she would give some indication of Townness so that I could erroneously accuse her. That would be ideal. Maybe I'll make a case against Roxis and just hope that I'm wrong.

Of course the ideal strategy is to lay low and let the inevitable, "Oh well, we have to lynch someone and that someone might as well be a lurker" take over. But do I have the patience? Probably not.

I'm still kind of ticked that my eggs can be nightkilled. The Google says that "jailer" roles tend to both protect and role-block, but it seems that I only role-block and don't protect. I suppose I could lie about the protection part, or at least feign ignorance. Hmmm. What to do, what to do... Maybe I'll egg claimed masons. That would be nice, and claim that they can't be night killed.

I've been kicking around the idea of claiming today. I'd like to claim third party survivor at my earliest convenience. The only problem I have with that is the presence of a Vig. A good move for the Vig would be to kill a third party at night, just in case. That way the lynch isn't wasted. Maybe I'll claim after I see a dead Vig. Or after the impostor is exposed. So many choices!

I forgot how prescient he is. Clever of him to pick up on the lack of vanilla-like playing.

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Man, sach is on a roll!

I re-read the first couple of pages.
Kat was responding to Rysto's suggestion that all votes be accompanied by an updated (unofficial) vote count. So Kat was right in that she would have to do math every vote, even as Town.

Maybe I will egg Kat after all.

[naf1138]

This is why I always try to kill sach right away when I am scum. They guy is too good at this game.

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More from Sach:

Crap. Roxis is being far too conciliatory towards me. I don't know her well enough yet, but scum are usually totally nice me in these games. I was really hoping that I was wrong, and Roxis was Town.

Oh well, I guess I'll back off anyway.

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tdpatriots (Krystal) says:

Just wanted to say that as someone who drew suspicion early in my previous games, I'm rather surprised that I'm flying under the radar so far in Day One. I've barely posted more than the people I've accused of lurking (in some cases, less) and haven't been voted for, suspected, or even called out for hypocrisy. Do need to, and plan to, get gradually more involved as the Day and game progress, though. Mainly I've been consciously letting bandwagons develop on their own, avoiding fluff, definitely avoiding theme discussion as I know jack-shit about SSB - I don't play Nintendo anymore - and trying to wait until I've got something to actually say. This is in marked contrast to Arkham and Bastion, obviously, but those games didn't go to well for me

Granted, this could all change in a second, but so far I'm half pleased and half worried. I do like never seeing my name in bold though lol.

Oh, and all these Day One claims are pissing me off.

Potential Investigation targets: This is mostly based on advice from RoOsh of all people before he lost his internet, but he suggested going after hard-to-read players like rysto, Hal, MHaye, Sachertorte or atarus oil. I'll probly stay away from attempting to confirm claimed players because I don't expect any so far (except maybe the masons) to live very long anyway. I'm leaning towards rysto if only because his investigations helped ruin my (silly? bold?) bluff in Batman lol

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Zeriel had this to say about the masons:

Honestly, I think you would have been better served by a scum mason who couldn't talk to his/her fellows--the biggest issue with this arrangement is that it makes the masonry instant targets no matter what we do, since we're known confirmed townies. In short, I think my response to this is the only sane play the masons can make, and then we're left with, at best, two confirmed and partially claimed masons with their asses left flapping in the breeze. At worst, the masons scum and town both are all dead on day three. Basically I don't like the mechanic because none of the masons get a lot of strategic choice--there's only one optimal plan.

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More thoughts from Zeriel about the masonry:

I think the chained masonry that was done in SDMB mafia worked the best--each mason knew one other mason, and they couldn't talk. So it was/would have been child's play for scum to tag masons into/onto the chain periodically.

A PFK mason(s) is also a good idea, that way a mason is untrustworthy but they can't out their fellows to the scum instantly as the only sane first move.

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Sach hates capitalization:

I can't believe I'm trying to talk the Town out of lynching a mason! It's like a compulsion; I can't stop myself. I need to calm down and lynch one of them. But I guess I have to wait for the mason board information. I just hope I can make a decent case against one of them since I already stated that I need a case to vote for one of them. I'm so STUPID!

Obviously I should want Town to lynch a Mason. Ideally we bag a Town Mason, then we can lynch another one tomorrow! Lynching them means not lynching me! Woo Hoo!

At least this time few seem to be listening to me. Eyes are clearly focused on the mason prize. Excellent!

And all these role PM's. I hope we get enough out in the open so I can decide whether Yoshi is a Town jailer, town jailer or a Town Jailer. I'm leaning Town jailer at the moment.

Stupid capitalization.

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Sach is amazed I'm 15.

Holy Crap! You're fifteen?!


I'm having a hard time understanding the mason situation. The only one of them that I've played with before is Zeriel. miteymouse is a mystery to me.

On one hand, she claims that she can figure out who the scum mason is with her night power. But her night power is TRACKING. How the hell is that going to get anything done?

On the other hand, it is remarkably stupid for scum to claim such a thing. Even if she could determine for herself who the scum mason is, there is no evidence for the other masons, or anyone else to believe her. What was she thinking? If she is Town she's confused about her powers and the believability of her standing based on it. If she is scum, she's blatantly trying to get to Day 2 for some reason and doing a crazy job of it. Neither tactic makes sense.

Really, if we went to Day 2 and miteymouse jumped up and down and said Zeriel is scum... we would believe her? NO! Maybe she's truthful and maybe not, but we wouldn't know anything.

The problem is I don't want to vote for miteymouse because I think she is scum. I want to lynch a Town Mason Today. And the vote count has Zeriel up for death! I wonder if I can suppress my puzzle compulsion for another 22 hours. I betting no, but I will try.

I'm pretty sure Ed is Town though. Maybe I should try and get him lynched.

[flyingcowofdoom]

You're 15???

I am also amazed. How do you get online so often during school hours?

--FCOD

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Jan 29, 2009 16:44:53 GMT -5 @flyingcowofdoom said:

You're 15???

I am also amazed. How do you get online so often during school hours?

--FCOD

Because I'm not in high school. I'm in college.

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Sach chooses his target.

Woo hoo! That was the best! I don't mind being wrong this time! Wow, I guess I need to recalibrate for people I don't know and/or are new to this game. miteymouse was really hard to read.

In retrospect, it should have been obvious. In the Mason Thread Zeriel voted for miteymouse. As a Scum the really only choice would be for miteymouse to vote for Zeriel, but she didn't. She voted for Ed. That should have been a giant sign that miteymouse was Town. Oh well, you learn something new, right?

Bummer is, it leaves little for determining which of Ed and Zeriel are scum. Could I have everything mixed up and Ed is the SCUM? I think that is very possible. Prior to the Mason situation I was leaning towards voting for Ed, but the mason exchange makes him look very very good. Maybe too good.

Actually, looking at the 3-handed case makes me really think Ed is the SCUM. It is my opinion that scum would be less aggressive in 3-handed. Zeriel jumps out (aggressive) and votes for miteymouse. Ed sits back. It makes less sense for scum to jump out at miteymouse since the expected response is that miteymouse would then reciprocate. Yeah, I think Ed is the SCUM now. I'm glad I don't really care.

Maybe pro-Town nightkillers will take out Zeriel. That would be sad since I'd like to have him for lynching tomorrow, but a dead Zeriel means less nightkills for me to dodge. I hope there aren't too many. I need to make it at least 3 Nights, more likely 4 or 5 to win. Yipes! I better pick a good one to egg Tonight.

I'm probably going to target an under-the-radar type. Nanook, Hal, aubby, or someone who I don't even know is in the game of the top of my head...

I Choose to turn aubby into an egg.

I will be sorely disappointed if the SCUM kill Sach.

[sachertorte]

Jan 30, 2009 11:53:15 GMT -5 pede said:

I will be sorely disappointed if the SCUM kill Sach.

Me too.

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Natlaw muses about his role, asks questions:

Confirming I got it and some questions and musing for posterity:

1. You have cast a spell to keep Sheik trapped within you during the night. However, this spell won't last more than 12 hours at a time, and besides Sheik's better at battling than you, so you have no control over your actions during the night. You may not post during the night, nor will you remember your nighttime excursions. Doing so would be...disastrous. If you attempt to take back control during the day, you would fully lose control of your body, dying, and Sheik would live.

I assume the 12 hours is color and not real time. I can talk and do actions at Day and not at Night (Sheik most likely reversed).
I believe the term is Gastardly :crazy:, I already see peekers vote coming ;D
If true, it might be slightly in my favor since Days are longer (less problems with timezones and with the majority countdown start might random it up a bit).
Also I might be able to track down Sheik based on only posting at Night.
Color suggest (s)he would be on might side, but cannot take that for granted. I'm thinking SCUM, because the linked death would give them a free double kill.

If I would make a suicide post during the Night (to post some important info maybe), would you remove it or only mod kill me?

[/color]



Can I cast this spell an unlimited number of times?
Does it stop one kill or any and all kills (eg someone with a day kill) as well?
No idea what Sheiks counter power would be, I'm thinking Hitman (guaranteed a SCUM kill) if mine is only one charge, otherwise seems too powerful. Maybe just a SCUM doctor in that case.

4. You can instead create an explosive protective flask during the day. Attach this to somebody at dusk, and then next dusk it will explode and protect that person.

A delayed protection (eg the flask attached Today will protect them not Night 2, but Night 3), some questions:
Did Koldanar attach a flask to someone?
I can make unlimited flasks right?
I presume they keep working after I die?
Will people notice the Flask?
Can I flask myself?
I guess it won't prevent me from dieing when Shiek dies?
I'm guessing Sheik simple has the same power, but will be using it to protect SCUM. If town, not sure what (a poisoner is already claimed) power, but I need to consider flasking Sheik if I find him/her in that case.

Thanks,
Natlaw.[/quote]

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Natlaw makes more insightful guesses and observations:

So first some corrections on my previous PM:
Obviously Sheik doesn't have cannot-post-at-Day restriction, because no Night voting here. So on the assumption he has the same restriction as me, I was left with: Hal Briston, Nanook and Rysto who didn't post Night One.
Of course, Nanook has now called me out (and no one has even called him out on that, odd).

The only motivations for him to do that are that:
-he can kill and doesn't want to accidentally kill me
-he needs to know who I am for other reasons (unlock powers?)

I do have a protect power, so maybe he has a kill power, but I think it is more likely he is scum. If town, what he did basically paints a big target on his back, getting us both killed. If scum, it seems risky though, since we both die together - I guess scum want have it known to make Nanook basically vigilante immune.

Maybe the three brokentree votes are for him, as a mirror of my Governor power.

Not sure when to answer his call, maybe tomorrow if both Hal and Rysto post in the Night (assuming Nanook realizes I got the same post restriction).
On the other hand, the call out is basically a slip and he c(sh)ould get called on it and if his purpose is to find me and how powerful I am (and if I was not, they could focus on others), I better not.

Anyway, I want to have some protection before I do anything (bad Koldanar for not self protecting at least!):
-roxis will probably self protect;
-Parzival seems expendable - and if scum go after him Tonight, I can't protect him anyway.
Depending on what clues about Nanook I find, and if scummy I think I'll stop protecting us. Town loses a doctor/governor, but it would be a one-for-one trade, which is still in towns favor.

I can change my actions later right if it is still Day (is there a deadline other than three hours for the Governor power)?

I put a flask on myself Day Two, giving me and Nanook protection Night Three.

I will not stop the kills Day Two.

Die Ed, Die! I wanted to look at his posts and needed to set the number of posts to 250 ><. Is there any way to search in thread only on this forum? Gonna be hard finding posts in first Days later in the game.

He's really a natural at this game.

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Natlaw picks up on Ed's slip:

Never mind, I just noticed there is a search thread link at the top of a thread when you are viewing it.

In other news, I'm tempted to let Mr Special Ed not get lynched for confirming Nanook is scum. Nah, who am I kiddin'? Bye, bye ed .

Nanook called out at random, but Ed specifically responded to me. Ed has ignored Hal Briston and has not responded to Rysto at all. Rysto had a minor defense post of Ed Day One, but before the masons reveal iirc.
So maybe those two are scum and scum want me to claim to determine what my other powers are.

So I think I'll delay as much as I can before I claim.
Related: Since Sheik and I have the same body, a Night tracker/watcher watching me at Night would see Sheiks actions? A Day watch of Sheik would see my actions?

No gain for town in claiming yet, though scum are probably using Nanook as designated killer and if tracked hope I'll protect him to save myself.
Or if they hit a bodyguard, they'll take me with him.
And if the bodyguard is one-shot and I protect us, then I waste that power.
On the other hand, with Eds post I think I can make myself pretty confirmed when I claim and auto take down a scum when killed.
I'll keep protection us for now.

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Natlaw plans to attack Nanook:

Argh, I guess it was not clear from my previous PM, but special ed responded to thi s post of mine, where he repeated the following line made by Nanook:

Feb 3, 2009, 11:56am, nanook wrote:
Zelda are you out there?


I was planning to use that post by ed as evidence that Nanook is scum, based on:
-Nanook/Sheik knows/deducted I cannot post at Night
-Nanook shared the Zelda info he has as Sheik with the rest of the scum (including ed)
-I was one of four players not to post at Night One
-> so both Nanook and Ed were trying to get me to claim.

If it is at all possible, please restore this post from special ed and any other where he was not posting crap, but posting WIFOM stuff (he made several post with X is scum, Y is not scum etc).

Maybe it got the post in my quotes cookie at home, but I haven't got it at work .

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tdpatriots laments Rysto's passing:

Figured it might be a justifiable risk. What little I could find on the internet about my role name wouldn't obviously betray my role, and I'm not even sure if I'm the only character in SSB that uses a staff. Is worth a shot, I suppose, if that's what Pollux is talking about, and it gives me an excuse to bring it up incase someone else wants it and wants to give it to me.

Sucks that Rysto bought it, that's one investigation result down the drain

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tdpatriots remarks on unusual coincidences:

If Im modding this game, I am floored that the following events happened:

1) That Mario examined Wario's corpse, which was completely unremarkable among the 10 bags
2) That Krystal investigated Mario and knows, beyond the Godfather possibility, to trust the player
3) Krystal investigated Mario the previous goddamn night

I just gotta figure out how the hell to keep the whole "empath" part of my PM a secret.

[pede]

molefan has some really interesting thoughts on general strategy:

...I'm trying to keep all my thoughts public with the scum, but I'd like to say one thing privately because it's more of a general point and it's been bugging me for ages now.

OK, so before the whole me-trying-to-frame-KidV-and-him-riding-my-ass-for-it situation got going, we had another minor disagreement. I said that there were situations and games in which a vanilla claim early on might be beneficial to the town as a whole. (I've posted my reasoning to Idle, and I hope he put it in the "Mario" spoiler thread although I never checked afterwards.) In other words, the rule that early vanilla town claims are bad for town is not universal, although it would almost certainly apply in games like this one.

Y'see, I'm primarily a poker player, in every sense of the term - I go to lots of live tourneys and on occasions have won quite a lot of money. And one of the first things you need to learn about poker is that there are no absolutes, you have to make your judgement on the situation as it is in each hand with the people involved.

For example, throwing money at the pot with the worst hand in hold'em poker (7-2o) is the tactically correct move if you believe that by doing so, you can make everybody else involved in the pot fold and give you their money. Novice players would throw this hand away from any situation without a second thought; but an expert player studies each situation, hand and opponent individually, and can make snap judgements about opportunities to get his opponents to fold the best hand and call with the worst one. You have to know which players can be pressurized and bullied into folding their good hands, which will call your bets regardless of how weak their hand is, and which ones will bet wildly in an attempt to bluff you off the pot if you show any weakness whatsoever. The point is, how you play depends on the situation and your assessment of your opponents just as much as it depends on the cards that you're dealt (which are largely a matter of luck anyways). Weak players just play their cards and ignore these elements.

But when you think about it, this applies to mafia as well - more so in many respects. Weak players talk about "scumtells" and "strategy" as though they're somehow universal (an attitude that I'm quite happy to "buy into" if I'm scum - after all, it makes it that much easier to fool people, which right now I seem to be doing an okay job of.) Parzival is a prime example. Let me quote a post from him from day two:

I'm not voting Mr. SE yet since I want to make sure we have a long day of discussion. Although we need it to make up for the loss of two masons the 'sure thing' lynch isn't all that great either since it won't generate much useful.

This sort of attitude seemed to prevail for many of the non-scummy players. It immediately causes me to ask: why exactly do the town need a long day of discussion? In a normal situation I'd go along with this attitude as town, but this isn't a normal situation. There's an automatic predetermined lynch, which means that even if a scum were to out himself in public thread by pure accident (hell, it happened in "Arkham Nights" IMO, it could happen again here!) the town wouldn't be in a situation to do anything about it, unless there's a vig about (remembering that Zeriel had just been killed off the night before).

In a situation like that the prime concern should be to make 100% sure that the scum don't get any useful information about power roles, threatening players, etc. Forget the rush to get as much info as possible out into the open; each game day is five real days long, are you saying that's not enough time to do it when we actually have a chance to lynch someone based on what we find? This seems to me so obvious that it's almost unworthy of comment. And yet, when I wrote it out and posted it in the scum board, it looked unbelievably scummy even to me. Can you imagine the reaction from certain quarters? "ZOMG somebody wants to stop daytime discussion! They must be scum!"

And if this seems like over-reacting, re-read that post on the scum board where I speculate that Rysto might be a cop because he's acting exactly the same way as he did when he was cop in "Arkham Nights", a game in which we cooperated fairly closely as town. There's a reason I wrote it then: because I barely noticed him until his actions (or rather, lack of them) on that specific day. I'm not saying that I didn't get lucky, but I am saying that if the town had lynched Ed cleanly and without any fuss - which is counter-intuitive but IMO makes a helluva lot more sense - it would never have occurred to me that Rysto might be a serious threat.

The irony is that Parzival himself claimed to have redirected Rysto onto someone "interesting", which would've most likely (knowing Parzival) meant either the reveal of an actual scum, or the clearing of a powerful townie.

BTW I've also in this game mentioned "reads" of Hal, Hoopy, and Roxis. I also have a read on, but haven't specifically mentioned, Aubby. (Suffice to say that if I were town, I'd be 100% opposing his lynch. Like I said, "indecisiveness =/= scum." That's especially true in his case.) All of those reads are 100% genuine, and they're things that I'm certain I would have picked up on even if I were town in this game.

Let's take Hal as an example. When he started speculating on the different capitalization of the mason role PMs, even though I 110% disagree with this as a means of identifying scummy players, I don't think it's anti-town because it's fairly characteristic of what I've observed from Hal when he's been in pro-town roles. Whereas if a few other players - Roosh for example - came up with this kind of reasoning, I'd be baying for their blood if I were town.

But to go back to generalities - I think it's wrong to rely upon things that are "always" true, because there's usually cases when they turn out not to be. Generally speaking, conventions have become conventional for a good reason - which is why, in 90% of cases, I'd be agreeing with KidV that early vanilla town reveals are a very bad thing for the town. That's not to say that there aren't exceptions, or that a clever player can't take advantage of the predictability that they provide. This is why so many new players here seem to get booted early (and you know I've got Aubby in mind here). Because people, both scum and weak townies, are quick to jump on their ignorance of what's become the "accepted" ways of doing things, and mark those actions as "anti-town". What gets lost here is that the point of the game isn't to lynch the people who are "anti-town", it's to lynch the scum. And far too often the scum can put up a much better "pro-town" screen than the actual townies can.

FTR I don't like that Aubby was being scapegoated on what seem to me to be very, very spurious grounds, although I doubt many people here would see it that way, but I hate it that he quit. These games get pretty intense sometimes and it's easy to forget how bad it can get when you're in a position like that. Last game I quit (for the first time ever BTW) but that was because I felt that, had I continued, I would have spoiled it for everyone else. Having said that, if the town actually lynch Chuchura today, they're losing it. (Let's hope they do then!) If it wasn't obvious enough that Aubby wasn't scum by the fact that he genuinely did not have a clue what was going on on Day 2 - a fact that nobody seems to have picked up on - then the fact that he then went and quit out of pure frustration should be a massive wake-up call to the townies about him. Sorry, but that is not the action of a guy who's got a support system of at least three scumbuddies behind him. That's the action of a guy who's out on his own and taking it badly. He could be PFK or town, but there's no way Aubby could ever have been scum based on his actions of the past day.

So what I'm basically saying is: there's a pretty good chance that the town are about to lynch the person who, to me, is the most obviously not-scummy player in the entire game. As scum, I kinda like that situation!

Moley out.

[pede]

Hoopy Frood said this in the Evil Dead Cabin in the Woods thread, but I think it aptly describes what's going on in this game:

Actually, I think playing that way is a lousy way for a power role to play. I came to this conclusion at some point between Arkham (my first game and first town) and Marvel (my fourth game and second town). In both I was a power role. With Arkham, I was still getting my bearings. In Marvel, I spoke my mind as a mason with a potential bomb power (it only would activate if the other masons were dead). In SMB (game five, town detective) I also spoke my mind openly. The problem with playing cautiously when you have a power role is two-and-a-half-fold:

1) If you vary your play between vanilla and power-role, scum will find you.

Corrolary to 1) Even if scum can't metagame, they tend to target the cautious anyway, because that's where power roles hide. (In Doperville, my second game, we scum took out the doc night one or two.)

2--and most important) Your power is secondary to the fact that you are a townie who has pro-town motivation to spur discussion and express your thoughts.

The power is nice, but people get too caught up in relying on it, both the players of the power roles and the other players. The powers should enhance your game playing, not be your game playing.

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Hoopy Frood and the Ice Climber's Conundrum:

Well, we're in an interesting situation. Chucara is very close to paul's vote count. If paul drops a bit more, I might actually break out my Day power. I honestly didn't think I ever would, and I know if chucara's town I'm going to catch high Hell for it, but paul is a bad lynch choice, and I regret ever voting for him.

The flipside, though, if chucara is scum, I pretty much get townie cred, set myself up for a night kill (which I want), and give a great data point with those who rapidly jumped on the paul bandwagon (probably to save chucara).

It'll be an interesting last hours, to say the least.

[pede]

From Molefan:

OK, so let's take a totally hypothetical vig character. Who isn't based on Blockey in any way, shape or form. Nope. Not a chance. Anyways... take a vig who's so bad that he manages to single-handedly target three power-roled townies in a row. On the third night, the townie that he targets also happens to be a voluntary Granny - a character who can kill anyone who targets her at night. Despite her awareness that our vig is in all likelihood a town-aligned power, our over-enthusiastic Granny decides to teach him some manners by decorating her sideboard with his entrails. This effectively means the Granny becomes a vanilla townie, but also means that our rampant vig can't cause any more damage to the town cause.

So is the Granny's action really pro-town or anti-town? Enough with the "Shooting the vig is always bad" malarky, what do the numbers say? With the scum and malicious players forming an ever-larger percentage of the total players, our vig is almost bound to get lucky at some point. But how many townies does he have to mow down before this becomes a reality? Also, is the vig in a position to confirm our Granny, or our Granny confirm the vig, if both survive? Or will they merely target one another for lynching, and waste a lynch as well as a town night-kill opportunity?

Please present this one to the committee, I'd be interested to hear what they say. Oh, and send Blockey my apologies if he hasn't in fact targeted three of his own side by mistake. Hey, there's so many dead townies about, it's kinda hard to keep up with who killed who...

(If it's not obvious enough, I'm just elated that they actually swallowed Nanook's crazy story. I mean, ARE YOU KIDDING?!! Does the peanut gallery want me to insult their intelligence by pointing out how many things wrong there are with the idea of Nanook as PFK? The real PFK must be laughing his butt off right now... unless he's just about to be lynched of course... I fully expect this to go pear-shaped in the not-too-distant future, but hey, I'm going to enjoy it while we're on top. )

[pede]

Molefan brags:

OK, here's a quick elaboration on the point I made in the scum thread about the townies relying on convention far too much. Yes, some conventions are generally true, but hardly any are always true, and you can usually bet that it's going to be the one exception to the rule that's gonna end up killing ya. It's when convention becomes cliche, though, that you really have to start worrying. Cliches like these ones:


1) "It's always better to get information out there."

- Not when you have no free lynch. Otherwise you'll just end up outing the cop. Ask Rysto. Yeah, I made a lucky guess that happened to be correct, but I would never have even thought of him as a danger if it wasn't for his playing style in that particular round mimicking the time he was last a cop with me in "Arkham Nights".


2) "Removing unconfirmed townies helps the town late in the game."

- Not with this voting system. At the moment the town have two scum and a couple of other townies in their sights. Yet they have to vote for three people for their votes to count. Unless they deliberately split their third votes (which it hasn't occurred to them to do so far), they're in real danger of giving someone like Shaggy four votes. Punker should already be voting for him, leaving just me and Kat to change our votes at the last minute. Hell, we managed it once before, only failing because Peeker and Punker had some last-minute internet issues...


3) Hoopy's statement: "If he was really going for a bus, he probably would have done it earlier when there were less datapoints to mine from."

The specific assumption is that at this point, that particular data matters. It doesn't. Hell, I voted for the three other scum in my three votes in the last round for that very reason! Kat could declare herself scum in open thread and it still wouldn't change our position right now. The only thing that could really hurt us right now is if I'm declared scum, and Hoopy has just exonerated me on this fatally flawed reasoning.


4) "Anti-town = scum."

I don't know how many times this game I've heard that one repeated in some form or another, and it's always been wrong. Look, the scum have both the knowledge and the motive to not be anti-town. The most anti-town players in this game by a country mile, if you exclude night-kills and scum information that the town don't have access to, have been: KidV, Shaggy, Hoopy and MisterBlockey. Each of them has at some point been directly responsible for the removal of at least one townie from the game. (Thanks to some really bad luck when it comes to the vigging, Misterblockey probably had three on his scorecard.) All of them are townies themselves. What does that tell you?


I'm sure I could think of others, but there's the most common four. My point being: if you're a townie working in the dark, try to use circumstance as your guide. Convention is a signpost, not a roadmap.

Now please don't pass on this advice to the townies.