Thoth

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

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.

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?

Male.

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

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.

random.org

Re: post #42

Then again, I did get told last game that my true claim of C. Round / K. Round was bogus.

Notwithstanding that Shining said that and he flipped scum.

I strongly town-read Mikal and believe the Evanlyn claim is almost certainly true. If the TVtropes character page is a good indication, there are few enough important protagonists that fake-claiming her would be suicidal. RT is my only scum-read so far, albeit only a bit, as I am less convinced, but not fully unconvinced, about his Tug claim.

I'm curious how characters are split into town versus scum. I would think that protagonists are town and antagonists are scum, but Deltarune had enemies as town and protagonists as scum, presumably because, and Casey can confirm this if she hasn't already and I forgot, there weren't enough heroes to fill town.

We have claims of Evanlyn and Will Ranger's horse (Tug), who are both protagonists, so scum are likely but not definitely canonically evil. I'll tentatively suggest Morgarath as scum, and, given that he's the only supernatural being in an otherwise realistic setting, Mafia JOAT could fit as representing his uniquely wide variety of abilities. From what I've seen, the book series has no overarching antagonists, so there are many possibilities for the other scum.

"I'm a horse that senses danger" = a power that nullifies any action, harmful or helpful, but not kills? Seems odd to me but fair enough.

Not nullifying kills is a weak spot in the justification, but I suppose that nullifying any action including kills could be overpowered, which lends it credibility. What would that be called; Rolestopper?

I have to apologize for not thinking about how hard it could be to paraphrase your justification.

Unvote

I have no clue why a horse that gallops people away from danger would be unable to prevent kills, but I got what I wanted and we can come back to it later if need be.

I'm fine waiting to see what Mag1c's cooking up with this #1-8 selection. Can't say I know where he's going with it, but the whole thing is weird enough that it's NAI and I'm curious.

NAI?

I might be insulting everyone's intelligence by pointing this out, but 9 players minus Magicman makes 8, so his role might have some seat-based mechanic.

Has anyone seen a mechanic that fits with what Magic is asking us to do?

Mikal's SOP claim makes me lightly townread him. At the very least, it would be a strange choice to give him to fake claim a role with a verifiable visit that should happen every NP.

A verifiable visit? You wouldn't have accidentally admitting to knowing there is a way to verify it, would you? That is, unless the person behind whom Compulsive Hider hides normally receives an alert. However, without knowing enough about this site's role-setup meta to know how likely it is that someone can verify his claim, or at least that he can visit someone, I tentatively agree with your townread since claiming a visiting role is probably risky.

Apart from that, just a minor behavioral read. I agree with Thoth that it's a bit odd for Casey to say that the Hider and Asceticizer somehow complement one another. It's a weird thing for Casey to call out at all, but not really a reason for me to read Casey as scummy or townie, just something odd I clocked.

I was responding to RT, although Casey did agree, and I meant my response less as a statement than as an open question in case I overlooked something. I suppose you could read it as RT and Mikal or Casey concocting a fake claim, coming up with a poorly thought-out justification for it, and metaphorically nodding their heads at each other. I also think Mister Fantastic would be impressed at that reach.

Then again...

I suppose I’ll also claim the character. I am Will’s Ranger Horse

Will's... Horse? If Will's horse isn't a main character in its own right, this sounds enough like a cover to me, and not even that good of one, that I'm tentatively scumreading you. This is weird enough that it makes me wonder if scum exhausted their fake-claim questions on characters that were in the game. Then again, I did get told last game that my true claim of C. Round / K. Round was bogus.

I do not know this theme, I thought it was lord of the rings at first because my characters name but on reading it, obviously not lol

On the topic of behavioral reads that are more like behavioral reaches, it feels slightly off that an apparent fantasy novel-fan would mistake his character name as being from a different series, unless each has a character with an identical name.

VTL RationalTheist

I'll start applying pressure here because I don't see the logic of Will Ranger's horse (Tug) being an Asceticiser and I'd like the justification, paraphrased of course, from your role PM. This shouldn't be a problem since you've already claimed your character and role and I would be stunned if an anti-claim mechanic checked flavor. I could imagine the horse galloping someone away to safety, but why would that be restricted to non-killing actions?

I looked up what a hider is and it looks like our roles complement each other.

How do they complement each other? Aren't they anti-synergistic because Asceticiser could block Compulsive Hider from hiding behind someone?

You can actually tag more than five people in a single post now, at least on the Mafia forum, which is pretty cool imo

Can y’all confirm this?

I hope this isn’t some scum mechanic I’ve never heard of where you can punish me if I pick the wrong number(s).

That said,

7

What’s it for then, night kill?

Like I knew anything about Deltarune? What goes around comes around.

You're telling me.

Bulletproof is actually very common in the meta I'm used to. It's called Tough and also protects from a lynch.

It's a shame that you can only run a setup once. It would be interesting to test how swingy this setup is and how often each side wins. The degree of scum inactivity made for a poor data point.

I'm not clear on the lore here. Does it make since for Ralsei to be opposed to Kris and Susie? Before reading this thread, I thought the factions were Scum = Player character's party and Town = Enemies.

and there was even room to push a potential WF/RT team

I was wrong there, which I'm happy to accept, but I'm surprised nobody else believed it given how perfectly it fit a scum all-in.

Would Anticlaim have nullified my Bulletproof? I speculated in mod chat, and maybe also publicly, that nullifying protective abilities was not the Anticlaim mechanic because my role weakness would be redundant. I am even more surprised given that, unless I missed something, the only protective abilities were my Bulletproof and Lunatic's Jailkeeper. Did Mafia know what the Anticlaim effect was?

Did y'all really not believe I was C Round / K Round?

I was laughing hard on day 2 when Lunatic said that once-per-game bulletproof was too complicated for a noob to come up with. I won my first Discord game by bluffing a character that was important to lore but not in the role list, and then claiming a made-up ability that gave me specific information that I also made up. That entire game will live rent-free in my head as long as I live.

Mikal - You are Berdly! "That's LORD Berdly to you simpletons!" Berdly is THE nerd in Hometown, constantly flaunting his intelligence, much to the annoyment of those around him. As he later admits, however, his reputation as a smart kid only started after he won the school spelling bee in elementary school, and he became addicted to the praise and attention. Noelle is the truly intelligent one, and Berdly only does well academically because of her helping him study. Like Berdly, you can gain information, but only through someone else. You are the Beholder.

This justification is perfect. It would have been amazing if Mikal targeted Shining when he used Role Cop.

Could McDonald's have used each of his abilities more than once?

Good game, everyone.

I really believed whiteflame and/or RT made up the caroler. Sorry to throw that spanner in the works.

/in

Finance

I would like to sign up to run Use of Weapons by Iain M Banks, please.

what* scum would claim

Bulletproof isnt the easiest claim for me to buy.

Because it is would scum would claim to explain why they have not been night-killed?

It's possible that Mikal is neutral or a townie lying for some reason he thinks will benefit town, in which case whiteflame and/or RT could still be scum.

Re: post 233. Agreed that is critical info. I missed that earlier.

Erratum: That 10 choose 3 = 120 should have been 9 choose 3 = 84 since ILikePie died last night. Assuming that RT and whiteflame are both scum, then 7 choose 3 = 35, but that is pointless since it is assuming the conclusion which I am using probability to suggest. My point stands.