Ranger’s Apprentice Mafia DP1

why you chose the number you did

You asked me to pick a random number so I did. I really didn’t put thought into the number I picked.

With the reaction test pretty much done, I'll go into my thoughts:

First things first, I don't think this was as effective as I felt. I was hoping to get some wild speculation and theories from the test subjects... if they acted in a reasonable manner according to their theories, it was a sign of towniness. Instead, what I got was a bunch of people who just seemed confused about the whole ordeal.

That doesn't mean the effort was entirely useless.

Thoth: Said "I hope this doesn't hurt me" and then just went in with a random number... initially I thought it felt nooby, but after reading his posts a bit harder, he doesn't seem like a noob. That being said, the fearlessness in the face of possible danger is something I think is a bit townie.

Whiteflame: So, apparently, he had something that told him to pick a number that wasn't already selected by others (if I'm understanding him correctly here)... I'm not sure what the benefit to picking what others havent fhpov is, but the fact that he thought of something like that indicates the perspective of uninformed town. Obv giving town points for that.

I can't really say the same for Wryly, since she gave the rationale after Whiteflame. I think it's NAI there.

Casey's response is NAI. "Just letting me cook" is fine, but it could just be blowing smoke up my ass. Her response lacks what Thoth's and Whiteflame's had, so there's no real town indicator there. Could easily just be a mafioso throwing out a random number, speculating that I'm just reaction baiting.

RT's response is also NAI. Not much to say here. I'm not too bothered cause I have other reasons to townread him.

So I got small town hints on Thoth and Whiteflame here. Wasn't everything I hope for, but it went ok I guess.

Follow-up: Why did you each pick the numbers/players that you did?

(Post #57) I had random.org choose an integer between 1 and 8, and it gave me 7, which is, coincidentally, my player number. The probability of choosing any integer from 1 to 8 is 1/8, not significant at p = 0.05.

Speaking of probabilities, y'all could call me a dumbass for blithely picking a number without considering that it might help scum, and, worse yet, leaving it to random.org. I disagree. With 9 players and almost certainly 2 scum, the probability of that ability being town was 3/4, assuming I had no reason to believe that town or scum was more likely to have it, which I did not.

I've never heard of a mechanic that interacts with random number choices. I figure that I have the least experience with this site's meta of anyone in this game, certainly near the bottom, but the befuddled reactions to it tell me that nobody else here has heard of one either.

I didn't think about it much in the moment. I picked a number I thought was random. I'm interrogating ex post facto why how that choice was likely biased by existing picks. I don't know what else I can say to explain this.

(Post #63) I almost picked a number that I thought was random, as Casey probably meant in Post #89, but then I decided not to because humans tend to be bad at picking random numbers and I doubt that I am meaningfully above average in this respect.

And if I were hider I’d be baiting the night kill.

(Post #68) Eh. The likelihood he forgot he could make this play is high enough that I wouldn't scumread Mikal for it even if I discounted his incentive to SOP-claim because claiming Compulsive Hider later could look bad.

The whole “claim is scummy sounding” problem can be solved by just pointing to behavior that indicates you were baiting the NK.

(Post #68) Serious question: what kinds of behavior would you do if you were town and wanted to bait the NK? You could fake-claim a role that scum would want gone, but that would make you the prime lynch target if town catches your lie.

I also lowkey think people were too quick to just not question Mikal’s claim at all

(Post #70) The character and justification are plausible enough that it's not worth questioning until we get information that could confirm or deny it.

And then there’s the question if mafia are protagonists or antagonists.

I saw Thoth mention this earlier. He thinks mafia are antagonists.

It’s far from a guarantee. In inheritance cycle mafia (a previous game of Pie’s), the mafia characters were both protagonists, in a game where other protagonists were also town.

(Post #71) I never said that mafia are antagonists. I suggested it based on both claims being protagonists, and even that is inherently questionable since scum would presumably claim protagonists if they had no existing claims to judge by, although I doubt that is what happened here.

Good to know that town might not be all protagonists and that one or both scum might be protagonists.

As for RT’s claim: Tug is a deep pull and first instinct was that it’s the type of role to avoid claiming a major character.

Did some research, and it turns out there’s more to the horse than I thought. Notably, the horse can speak to Will Treaty, the main character. Other information shows a horse with human intelligence, that plays a larger role than I thought.

(Post #73) I take back most of my suspicion at RT's Tug claim. That horse is more important and anthropomorphic than I thought. A horse is a horse, of course, of course, and no one can talk to a horse, of course, that is, of course, unless the horse is the famous Mister Tug.

If the character can still be considered a deep pull, then one must answer why RT claimed so quickly under no pressure. Only argument is aggressive claiming right off the rip; would have to be teammates with Mikal imo.

I can't imagine scummates drawing attention to themselves in a pair like that.

Justification, as Wryly pointed out, is a stretch. I agree with the reasoning there.

I'm solidly townreading RT now because a Bodyguard-But-Wait-There's-More sounds powerful to me and, the more I think about it, the more I can buy that Tug's ability is inapplicable to killing actions because Pie sacrificed a little faithfulness to lore and to common sense for a lot of game balance.

Worth noting here is that if we lynch scum and they flip antagonist, both RT and Mikal essentially locktown.

(Post #75... and #76) I disagree, especially in light of Post #87. Thank you, Casey!

It's about interesting and often complex role interactions, a staple of Pie's games. The Asceticizer could end up stopping the Hider from actually being able to hide.

(Post #94) Hider and Asceticiser can interact in interesting ways, but many other pairs of roles can too, so I do think pointing them out as complementary is odd, albeit not worth a scumread.

Though, come to think of it, I suppose one could also be considered a pseudo-CC of the other... Will have to think about Mikal's claim a little more

(Post #94) CC = Counter-Claim? Either way, why would one be a pseudo-CC of the other?

Character & role make sense and if it's a fake claim it's a bold one with a major character like that.

(Post #111) With scum being allowed two questions about which characters are in the game, it might be less bold than it seems, although I still trust Mikal because Evanlyn is much more likely in the game than not.

Thoth: Said "I hope this doesn't hurt me" and then just went in with a random number... initially I thought it felt nooby, but after reading his posts a bit harder, he doesn't seem like a noob. That being said, the fearlessness in the face of possible danger is something I think is a bit townie.

(Post #122) Let's not beat around the proverbial bush. I've told you and, if memory serves, four other players how I won my first Discord game by blindly bluffing a plausible character (Serah Farron in Final Fantasy XIII) with no mod-provided fake-claims and concocting a complicated ability that gave me detailed information that I all made up. Not that I'm a grandmaster of Mafia, but, with half my co-players knowing this, I would be suicidal to even glance at the, "I'm a bumbling newbie, please please please leave me alone", card.

Whiteflame: So, apparently, he had something that told him to pick a number that wasn't already selected by others (if I'm understanding him correctly here)... I'm not sure what the benefit to picking what others havent fhpov is, but the fact that he thought of something like that indicates the perspective of uninformed town. Obv giving town points for that.

I don't know what you're getting at by "indicates the perspective of uninformed town", since the only information whiteflame had here was which numbers other people publicly posted, unless you're suggesting that scum could have discussed their choices in scum chat and then somehow scumslipped it. In any case, scum generally want to indicate the perspective of uninformed town, so no town points there.

I'm uncomfortable about Magic because of that request for number-picking. Not that I've forgotten how wrong I was last game when I accused whiteflame and RT of making up the Caroler, but I have a sinking feeling that he did this to activate some ability and then present it as a town move. That 3/4 probability I mentioned earlier plummets when I consider that I don't see why a townie would lie about this, but an evil might. Also, and I admit that I was also wrong last game when I said this about whiteflame, Magic's sheer amount of helpfulness and attempting to spark activity makes me suspicious that he's going out of his way to seem town. I also agree with Rex (Post #110) that my scumdar is lighting up in Wryly's direction, but that's pure gut feeling.

Do we want to get out gender soft-claims like last game? I'm surprised that hasn't been brought up yet.

Approximately 31 hours remaining

Do we want to get out gender soft-claims like last game? I'm surprised that hasn't been brought up yet.

I'm good with this. I don't think we've gotten a lot of insight yet and I think we need as much as we can get before we start poking for lynches. I'll start:

I'm male.

Since you suggested it, I'll insist that you go next.

Male.

Cool. Alright, putting this around to others, looking for character softclaims. I won't tag Mikal or RT on this since they already claimed their characters. Also, just to keep track:

Whiteflame - Male

Casey

Lunatic

Mikal - Evanlyn Wheeler - Compulsive Hider

RationalTheist - Tug - Asceticiser

REF

Thoth - Male

Magicman

Wryly

Yall are on some drugs

Male

Also male. Depending on the ratio of male to female characters in this series, this might not tell us much.

(Post #68) Eh. The likelihood he forgot he could make this play is high enough that I wouldn't scumread Mikal for it even if I discounted his incentive to SOP-claim because claiming Compulsive Hider later could look bad.

Just saying I'm not scumreading Mikal but I find it highly unlikely he forgot that he could make that play.

Whiteflame - Male

Casey

Lunatic

Mikal - Evanlyn Wheeler - Compulsive Hider

RationalTheist - Tug - Asceticiser

REF

Thoth - Male

Magicman - Male

Wryly - Male

Three left. I agree with Wryly that this might not tell us much, but we need more than we have to inform lynches and this is a place to start.

I obviously don't have enough information to accuse anyone, but, if you put a gun to my head right now and told me to name both scum or get high-velocity lead poisoning, they are Rex and Lunatic. Everyone else has made multiple significant contributions, at least to activity if not to finding scum.

I still have a bad gut feeling on Wryly too.

Also male. Depending on the ratio of male to female characters in this series, this might not tell us much.

(Post #131) Fair point. Did y'all realize this and not bring gender-claiming up because of it?

With only one game under my belt that Mikal mostly drove as hydra you're not gonna get a strategic treatise from me here.

And honestly the whole making-interpretive-leaps-based-on-nothingburgers-of-information aspect of this game is still not something that feels natural to me yet. It'll take time.

In reference to Luna's claim that he thought this was LOTR because of his character's name, did a dive into the wiki looking for names that sound Tolkienish, but not much pops out.

Morgarath sounds a bit like Morgoth, and Thorn Hammerhand is vaguely akin to Thorin Oakenshield (although that was the Hobbit). Samdash/Samwise maybe.

Approximately 23.5 hours remaining

In reference to Luna's claim that he thought this was LOTR because of his character's name, did a dive into the wiki looking for names that sound Tolkienish, but not much pops out.

Morgarath sounds a bit like Morgoth, and Thorn Hammerhand is vaguely akin to Thorin Oakenshield (although that was the Hobbit). Samdash/Samwise maybe.

Nice research lol my character is one of the names you mentioned.

Anyways I will be catching up and posting later tonight, I need to catch up on sleep.

With only one game under my belt that Mikal mostly drove as hydra you're not gonna get a strategic treatise from me here.

Hydra?

And honestly the whole making-interpretive-leaps-based-on-nothingburgers-of-information aspect of this game is still not something that feels natural to me yet. It'll take time.

It feels natural to me. It's just that feeling natural does not mean I am good at it.

Morgarath sounds a bit like Morgoth

More than a bit like. I figure most people would not recognize the name Morgoth, but, if Lunatic is a Lord of the Rings fan, there's a good chance he's Morgarath. If he flips Morgarath as town, that would un-town-lock Mikal and RT since it would confirm that town and scum are not all protagonists and antagonists, respectively.

Note: I only saw Lunatic's response after posting that last message, although it doesn't change anything I said there.

Thorn Hammerhand / Thorin Oakenshield also strikes me as a plausible conflation. Based on a quick Google check, Samdash is probably too minor to be in the game.

Hydra is when two players share one character/role and communicate in PMs.

With less than 24 hrs to go I still don't have a strong scum read on anybody to base a vote on. My gut feeling is Rex but it's just a gut feeling. Inconclusive on Mikal and RT. Mikal could have asked Pie if Evanlyn was in the game already, as Thoth pointed out. This I'm-too-busy-to-contribute-rn seems like an easy way to avoid giving anything away for the first DP.

Narrowed down Luna's claim to 3 characters at least. I don't see much in Samdash's wiki page to base a power on. That leaves Morgarath and Thorn Hammerhand.

I guess my gender would be 'unknown' or 'both'?

I don't have many reads. My earlier ones were a reaction test. I lean town on Wryly because I feel like a new player would either clam up and stop posting or have some kind of reaction to being hard scum read. Magic I'm leaning a bit scum on because I feel like he would at least respond to that with his level of experience. RT also didn't have much of a reaction, but I don't parse that as particularly town or scum. He might have been relieved to be town read by me as either scum or town and just let it sit. Thoth I find interesting because he's an experienced player that I don't have much history with. I'll have to watch his responses next DP more - I think I've made my opinion known that DP1 is useless for scumhunting in most scenarios. We should really just get activity going and I realize I haven't been very good about that. I honestly didn't expect this game to start this early due to the short list of signups and have a pretty packed schedule. Whiteflame I guess I'm leaning town but I've never played with him as scum that I can remember so I don't have a feel for it.

Hey all catching up. Mikal and mag are still my strongest town reads.

VTL Castin

VTL Casey

stupid auto correct

Official Vote Count:

Casey (1/5) - RT

I guess my gender would be 'unknown' or 'both'?

Lol I have no clue. Cobbenosskin? The Kyofu? Damn.

*Cobblenosskin