Short Stories Mafia Game Thread

[Alicorn]

Whoever has the most total votes wins, that is to say DIES. If two or more people tie for most votes then it comes down to THE COIN.

[Tamien]

If Shoal turns out to be town, then I would probably lynch jalapeno_dude next. Of the two of them, I like Shoal better for scum, but I am fairly sure that this is not a town v town fight. If Shoal turns out to be scum, my next vote would likely be for PDV, due to the unlikeliness of two mafia getting into a public slapfight on day 1.

The thing that came immediately to mind after you said this is that, actually, if jalapeno_dudo and Shoal were *both* scum, I could ABSOLUTELY see them orchestrating a public slapfight on day 1 so that once one of them flips as scum, the other is taken strongly for town. It would be a pretty risky move to set something up like that on day 1, but I wouldn't rule it out. I think they're both being a bit out of character and that *would* explain it.

Eva and Jalapeno are probably not scum together, though Eva sounds experienced enough that she should be able to read between the lines as to what I’m doing but whatever, explaining it would be antitown but I’ll say there’s a third option that she’s not seeing. Eva’s probably town, though.

This implies that either there is actually a protown option Shoal expects experienced players to see (and experienced in the specific way that Eva is - ie, knows and uses terms like "FoS") and that we're missing, or that Shoal is gambling on people trusting their aura of expertise on the game to make them seem townier. The latter seems somewhat unlikely to me, but I'm really not sure what town options Shoal has for saying a lot of what they're saying. Still, encouraging people to think of other options makes it more likely they'll think of what I thought of up there, and a scum!Shoal would probably not encourage that (well, assuming it was correct). This *tentatively* makes me slightly less suspicious of Shoal, but not enough yet, I think.

So, while I'm still suspicious of jalapeno_dude, for now, I will
vote Shoal
in an effort to force a COINflip while I go back through the thread and tabulate my suspicions and take notes and &c.

Lastly:

[wolffreak567]

I think I'm going to switch my vote to Shoal as the chances of DanielH getting lynched right now are very slim and I think Shoal is equally suspicious. I'm still not completely sure of what exactly I'm finding suspicious but something just seems a bit off about those two.

Vote Shoal

[Eva]

Tamien: in my (admittedly less) experience as scum, bussing (deliberately voting for other scum to clear yourself) is usually a very bad idea. Having 1 less scum is just not worth being 'clear' in the vast majority of cases, because when you get right down to it you are not confirmed town unless you're dead or copped. Even then, millers, disguisers, insane cops, etc etc.

(I have no clue how much of an evil god Alicorn is. Hopefully she is not too evil.)

Also, if Japaleno_dude and Shoal are both scum, then they would need to have daychat in order to coordinate a slapfight this early since there was no first night. I'm not sure I'd risk giving that away to the town with a gambit on the very first day of the game if I were scum.

[Eva]

Oh, also, at Shoal: I'm sorry, if you have a gambit I don't see it, and I am not generally in favour of town running gambits, especially this early in the game. They tend to cause more confusion than they catch scum. I'm keeping my vote on you.

[Eva]

Also also! Hybridzizi, since I'm reading you as 'new at this': The reason you want to lynch people early is that you want to see who is leading the lynch, how they explain their reasoning, and (equally as important) who didn't vote for that person. Scum are generally pretty reluctant to vote for other scum - and, more subtly, they have to conceal that they know who's scum and who's not. It is impossible for the scum to legitimately scumhunt, because they already know who the scum are - therefore they have to justify their conclusions after making their tactical decision, rather than making a tactical decision based on their conclusions.

[HybridZizi]

I am new at this. I've never played online mafia and even real-life mafia I've only played about 3 times. Thank you for the explanation. That makes sense.

[Tamien]

Tamien: in my (admittedly less) experience as scum, bussing (deliberately voting for other scum to clear yourself) is usually a very bad idea. Having 1 less scum is just not worth being 'clear' in the vast majority of cases, because when you get right down to it you are not confirmed town unless you're dead or copped. Even then, millers, disguisers, insane cops, etc etc.

(I have no clue how much of an evil god Alicorn is. Hopefully she is not too evil.)

Also, if Japaleno_dude and Shoal are both scum, then they would need to have daychat in order to coordinate a slapfight this early since there was no first night. I'm not sure I'd risk giving that away to the town with a gambit on the very first day of the game if I were scum.

Yeah, I don't think they would go with that option in a standard-rules mafia game, but if there were some weird extenuating ruleset (that had properties like, I donno, murder not being the solution to all our problems) then I could see it becoming an possibility. You are absolutely right that it would require daychat though. I feel like it's bad form to go hunting for metathread evidence of daychat (eg, poking the forum itself about things like post counts and subforums you lack permissions to) so I have not done that. Overall I feel like the scum saccing 1/4 to 1/3 of their faction to make another one seem more credible is pretty unlikely and *probably* not what is going on here, but I did feel it was worth mentioning.

(On a side note, I'm kinda frustrated that jalapeno_dude and Shoal are our two best leads currently, as they are both valuable assets to their factions who I enjoy having in the game and it would have been nice to feel confident they were on *my* side. How inconvenient for personal sentiment to conflict with strategic play! Quick, someone else, be really suspicious :P)

[Shoal]

if i’m mislynched, i’m appointing Eva, Modrony, and Pistachi0n as town leaders.

[Eva]

Eva- I would post more, but I'm a newbie and I don't want to end up doing something stupid and screwing things up. Until I'm sure of what I say, I don't want to say it.

I'm not sure if putting our suspicion estimates publically is a good idea though. It would basically be the same thing as suspicion lists from previous games. I recommend we do them, but privately.

What went wrong with using suspicion lists? IMO, more publically-available information is almost always good for town.