Strategy Discussion

[jalapeno_dude]

we should totally have a "rampant speculation about people" thread where we try to work out what powers people have. now that the cult thread is public you can look at that for an example of how we went about it

Done.

[Shoal]

I think we should pick who should be the killer based on who has been the least suspicious during the day. Of course you can give it to whoever you choose, but if I'm acting super sketchy in the thread then someone's probably going track me at night to see if i do anything and if they track me to a crime scene then that's it for me. So whoever among us is projecting innocent townsperson the best should get the kill in my opinion, but this doesn't have to be a democratic decision - I'm fine with jalapeno deciding on his own.

[pistachi0n]

I think Kappa is smart too but we shouldn't kill them on the first night because she voted for both me and Tulip. It'll be too obvious. My intuition keeps saying that DanielH really really really needs to DIE and that after that, the game will have progressed more and we'll have more speculation on important power roles we should kill.

[Shoal]

I found this advice on mafia scum a while back by a player named Jingle and I'm going to paste it here because I think it's worth thinking about even though our site has different social norms:

The "me" in question here is an experienced player who was mentoring people in a newbie game.

First, don't post just to break the silence, either at the beginning of the game, or after a night is over. Wait for others to do that first. The first few posts after a night is over are the most heavily scrutinized. I caught one of the scum in my last game on his first post, because of an errant comment he said. When in doubt, just wait until somebody else posts, and analyze what they said. Basically, try as hard as you can *not* to be the one sticking out of the crowd, especially *right* when people are looking for someone to scumhunt for.

Second, treat me as you would treat any other player. Don't avoid voting for me, don't avoid accusing me of something you think is scummy. This will be trickier than it sounds, especially because I'm a rather aggressive player. Similarly, don't get flustered if I start attacking you; treat it as if anyone else was attacking you and defend your honor.

Third, if someone (me or otherwise) attacks you for something, don't waste your time being defensive. Just politely explain why they're wrong (once, and *clearly*), and move on to what's important: looking for *actual* scum. The reason for this is simple: Scum subconsciously focus on their own guilt, and feel they have to defend themselves; town know they are innocent and don't put much stock in others accusations. This is why overdefensiveness is a pretty reliable scum tell in newbie games.

Fourth: This is a tricky one, and you'll have to feel it for yourself the balance for how closely you want to follow it: Follow other players' leads (including mine), but don't make it obvious that that's what you're doing. Try not to vote for the same person as someone else *because of the same reasons*; find your own reasons if you can. There are exceptions to this rule, such as when there's not much else to nitpick about them, or when the reason is so amazingly bad that you can't *not* vote them for it. For instance, last game I won as scum, there was a guy who quick-hammered *two* townies before they could claim. It was a no-brainer to vote him. And *not* voting for somebody that scummy is also bad. So like I said, you'll have to feel this one out for yourself.

Fifth: Survive until Night 1, and we can have a nice chat about everything that's transpired so far.

Good luck!

Basically, act like a townie. When it's daytime forget that I'm your scumbuddy, forget that you know more about the game's layout than everybody else, stay under the radar but not too much so that it seems like you're lurking. I may attack you, you may attack me. If something goes awfully wrong and one of us is outed (for example if I'm inspected and I turn up scum) then don't be afraid to lynch me. Oh, ignore that bit about aggressive play, I'm much more tame than the guy who wrote that. Don't be too defensive, make sure you look like you're continually trying to find scum. If someone attacks you, don't get too defensive. Any more tips that are non-scum specific will be made tomorrow during the day.

During night-time we can talk on this QT. This is where we'll discuss who to kill and why, and how we should play the following day.

I know this is a lot to take in, but good luck! I'm sure you'll do well.

If you've got specific questions let me know and I'll try to answer them before the game starts.

I snipped a few things that were specific to that exact setup they were playing but I think in general the advice sounds good.

[Shoal]

I have set in my profile to hide whether I'm online or not. You can do that here if you want to: http://alicorn.elcenia.com/board/ucp.php?i=174

The theory behind this is that if I'm actively lurking on the forum (people can see on the discussion thread that i'm here, but i'm not saying anything even though I'm reading) that can be more suspicious than passively lurking (people can't see whether i'm online or not for all they know i'm afk). In keeping with "try not to be obviously lurking", I think it is good to try to post at least once during each game day (72 hour period), preferably more, and if you post somewhere outside the game thread, for example to squee about the Sphinxette and Dragon pair, you should also find something in the main thread to reply to. I think that's something people will pay attention to eventually, if not on day 1.

Alternatively, if you know you don't have any night actions, or even if you do, it might be strategic to not hide your activity and to completely not visit the forum at all any time during one of the nights, and then just e-mail the actions to alicorn. if people later say "hey i was looking at aestrix's profile and she didn't even log in during the night phase" that might be a good defence. I mean obviously there's e-mail and everyone knows that's an option, but I think the town will buy it.

[Shoal]

Random voting, specifically sticking to the random voting is literally the worst the town can do. The longer they rely on the random number generator to pick someone, even if it falls on one of us, the better. *We* can do better than random chance.

power roles:

people besides us who seem a little bit eager for night fall. for a vanilla townie, night fall is the boring time of day when nothing in the game is happening that they can see or influence or learn about and then someone dies.

anyone who seems to be leaving breadcrumbs in their initial posts, for example like kuu did with "rusty" in the first game which was supposed to be a tony clue -- i haven't seen any of the source material so that's probably why i don't get that one but we should probably be speculating on what kinds of mafia roles would match up with which dramatis personae and then looking for breadcrumbs. For example if someone's first letter of their first post is C and the next post starts with O and the third post starts with P that's something we should take seriously.


people we should leave alive: anyone who seems particularly lost or anyone who starts sheeping one of us or seems easy to convince.


we should also pay attention to things that they notice as being scummy. For example last game everyone thought it was scummy the way thatwasademo voted on one of the last days of the game, and even though he was innocent people are already suspecting that we'll pull obvious shenanigans like that. so we commit to NOT doing that, to using our votes carefully and not changing our minds at the last minute in obvious ways, and to pointing our fingers at anyone who DOES do that.

[Shoal]

Also I had a thought about how we could get Pistachi0n lynched later. She can fakeclaim cop, and pretend she has a guilty on one towny (preferably someone who has been acting a little sketchy throughout the game), and that she has a couple innocents on some people who are really innocent, or maybe a mixture of people who are really innocent and mafiosos so that the people whose name is called as innocent is more likely to believe it, but they can't later on go back and determine anything based on who she picks. anyway, the whole town rises up that day and lynches whoever, but they turn out to be innocent. the next day, pistachi0n acts really sketchy while squirming guiltily and appologising and saying she was really sure they were guilty she doesn't know what happened, and then we all lynch pistachi0n.


edit: but since she's the one dying she should pick the strategy she likes best.

[jalapeno_dude]

people besides us who seem a little bit eager for night fall. for a vanilla townie, night fall is the boring time of day when nothing in the game is happening that they can see or influence or learn about and then someone dies.

BSS seems to qualify:

Waiting for more time to pass seems like a bad idea. What if everyone posts a date they like and we average those and find the random number for that day of last year. Maybe rounded to the nearest even number if necessary?

[jalapeno_dude]

Also I had a thought about how we could get Pistachi0n lynched later. She can fakeclaim cop, and pretend she has a guilty on one towny (preferably someone who has been acting a little sketchy throughout the game), and that she has a couple innocents on some people who are really innocent, or maybe a mixture of people who are really innocent and mafiosos so that the people whose name is called as innocent is more likely to believe it, but they can't later on go back and determine anything based on who she picks. anyway, the whole town rises up that day and lynches whoever, but they turn out to be innocent. the next day, pistachi0n acts really sketchy while squirming guiltily and appologising and saying she was really sure they were guilty she doesn't know what happened, and then we all lynch pistachi0n.


edit: but since she's the one dying she should pick the strategy she likes best.

Pistachi0n could also suicide off Tulip, which we might be able to use to give them credibility with Town.

[Shoal]

Also I had a thought about how we could get Pistachi0n lynched later. She can fakeclaim cop, and pretend she has a guilty on one towny (preferably someone who has been acting a little sketchy throughout the game), and that she has a couple innocents on some people who are really innocent, or maybe a mixture of people who are really innocent and mafiosos so that the people whose name is called as innocent is more likely to believe it, but they can't later on go back and determine anything based on who she picks. anyway, the whole town rises up that day and lynches whoever, but they turn out to be innocent. the next day, pistachi0n acts really sketchy while squirming guiltily and appologising and saying she was really sure they were guilty she doesn't know what happened, and then we all lynch pistachi0n.


edit: but since she's the one dying she should pick the strategy she likes best.

Pistachi0n could also suicide off Tulip, which we might be able to use to give them credibility with Town.

I thought Pistachi0n said she had to be lynched or it didn't work. Any of us could claim to be a cop with a guilty on pistachi0n, though, so Tulip could do that. If people speculate on why the mafia haven't killed the cop, we can speculate that the light is protecting her -- there probably is an actual light who probably will actually protect someone who fakeclaims cop