whiteflame

Alright, I'm frustrated and tired, but I wanted to get through this before the night was up.

I'll start by answering the questions I've been posed:

It says my character is a former member of the Liberation Army and a current member of the New State Army. I've tried doing some research into how that slots into the whole Scarlet vs. Toran split, but I haven't been successful at figuring it out, so here we are. I'm fine character claiming if desired.

As for where I see things going so far:

I'm hesitant to get invested in a theme split, even if Mikal seems to have a lot of info to back it. His pursuit of a theme split does ring as pretty townie. I don't think he'd push this kind of effort this early as scum, just seems more likely he'd be either pushing for more information like character claims to feel everyone out or less information to keep his claim more hidden.

I buy Max's claim. Fake-claiming Miller has happened before and it's certainly not impossible here, I just don't buy that he's done that this early and with no prompting.

I can't say I've seen a lot of outlying posts from Magic despite the votes that accumulated on him. He could be trying to throw sus at WyIted to get heat off of himself, but I doubt it. WyIted's posting so far does stand out and I think the case Magic's made against him has merit.

Other than that, I'm still trying to process. Probably will need to reread these posts when I can put this day behind me entirely, but didn't want to end the day without posting anything substantive.

I apologize guys, but some of our customers are being dicks and overloaded me with samples I don't have the reagents to process on the one fucking day when my major source of help is on vacation. I'm going to be slammed well into the afternoon, so I will try to catch up on this in the evening, but it's Shabbat and I can't promise I'll be available until tomorrow at this rate. FML.

May you never have gastric distress in a public toilet.

I have never seen a kinder thing wished for someone. So touching.

Never played Suikoden, don't know anything about it, but I am loving this artwork. Very detailed. Also, props to REF for the flavor text. Don't know if that comes baked in with the game or he's just really enjoying himself, but either way, impressive.

Anyway, this is just my check-in before signing off for the night. I should be active tomorrow. A heads-up for later in the game: my wife is getting surgery on Monday, I cannot promise what my availability will look like on that day as that will be pretty all-consuming. If I suddenly vanish for a long stretch on that day, please recall this.

1. Pie

2. Mikal

3. Shinning

4. Lunatic

5. Vader

6. Magic

7. Victor

8. Airmax

9. Thoth

10. Whiteflame

11.

12.

13.

Sub/Extra

Kohai

Wryly

Maybe

Moozer

Fuck it. Put me in coach.

I’m also largely confused as to why my role existed. Every role could move. I don’t think there is anyone I could target outside of awesome on np1 that would hear me

I think it would've worked on Thoth, he couldn't visit. Still, not a lot of choices.

Or at least say, yeah I’ve fucked up enough so I’m giving mafia 2 kills. Allows wf at least the chance to doctor and unsaid not to shoot so it’s not mylo.

I didn't even think to look at their actual roles before now, but I just checked: even if I'd known, REF had a Strongman. So the only surefire way to prevent either NK would have been for Unsaid or Luna to hit one of them. And given Pie's role, I might just have lost it entirely even if we'd lynched REF the following DP, since he could steal roles, and that assumes I wouldn't have been globally RB'd by the anti-claim mechanic.

Maybe I'm misremembering but there were games on DDO where I recall people not fullclaiming at MYLO unless they had results that were pertinent. After returning for my first game the new meta of a perfunctory mass claim to 'solve' the game gave me whiplash. It's not something that I remember seeing often, it was only done if town was in very dire straits and had no idea what the fuck was going on.

If so, I don't understand the logic. At MYLO, the only choice is to lynch correctly, and unless we have two clear players we scumread then, I don't see the value in allowing players' characters and roles to remain a complete mystery. If anything, this game demonstrates the "why" of it: you flew almost entirely under the radar as a potential lynch simply because you were a black box. Hell, Mikal even gave you cover for doing so, saying you'd just clam up and not claim or present a convincing fake claim if you were scum, which is part of the reason I went down that rabbit hole about him potentially being scum (I couldn't understand why he'd give you that cover, though from subsequent conversation, that seems to have come down to his tunneling Awesome rather than having a blind spot for you, specifically).

For example, you could say 'due to my role I know that x visited y' without explicitly saying you were a tracker or a watcher or whatever. People would press you for a claim if they doubted you a lot and if that could clarify things like interactions with other roles, but telling which you were was often seen as giving too much information to scum. Maybe @awesome5000 can comment about his site meta, but mass claims do not have to be done every game imo. It should be situational. I think kohai wanted the site to try a different way and get over this crutch but instead they just... claimed and lost.

That would be far more than you gave in terms of information. I'm not opposed to softing in place of a full claim and, depending on the level of detail in the soft, I could understand why someone would do just that. I just don't see the value in leaving anyone as complete unknowns at MYLO. That shouldn't be situational. I agree that there's an issue with massclaiming, and I'm opposed to early massclaims (I've made that stand several times in DP1 and will continue to do so whether I'm scum or town), but I sincerely don't get why you would refuse to get substantial information on everyone's claims when the choice is lynch correctly or lose.

Permanently roleblock, meaning during all future night phases? Jeez, that is nasty.

Didn't notice that, but that basically means we were boned if we didn’t get sufficient info from NP1. As soon as we hit MYLO and everyone had to claim (which I still think should have been a given), we all would have been RB’d NP2, so none of our roles would have mattered even if we’d lynched correctly.

I agree that mistakes were made on the town front here, though the extra NK is just such a huge overcorrection and made the game tremendously swingy, putting town in a situation where we could (and did) end up at MYLO in DP2. That's the biggest issue I have with this because it almost seems like it was here to correct for both the pseudo-mod confirmed players and a pretty big town advantage in roles that would have taken more than one NP to fully exploit.

I get how it ended up like this, but in the future, if there is a slip that results in effective confirmation of a town player, be careful not to award scum a role that dramatically shifts the balance of the game.

We got one block if one person claimed, two is three people claimed, and if all town players claimed they could all be blocked. It wasn't a 1:1 thing.

Alright, that changes things a bit, though I'd still say a lot had to go right for town in one NP for this to work out in our favor. I'll grant that there were multiple opportunities, more so if we had only one or two people claim, but I'd say the odds of us ending up at 5-2 by the end of NP1 are still far higher than the odds of us preventing an NK, which could still effectively put us in MYLO if Unsaid hung onto his role and targeted town.

Gimme a bit, still debating whether I'll join.

I get that the setup itself seems to have been town-sided, but two NKs along with the anti-claim mechanic (which basically invalidated half of those roles entirely while two of the remainder were just killed off, leaving us with two roles that could do anything) meant we got precisely one NP to make them count, and if we didn't target perfectly with exactly the right role, there was almost nothing we could do going into DP2.

I'm not going to argue that town didn't make mistakes here. Having 4 claims DP1 in a game where it is very explicitly told to us that an anti-claim mechanic would make them problematic was a mistake. Unsaid may think otherwise, but his having used his role NP1 was a mistake. But even assuming this went near perfectly - e.g. roughly two claims meaning two roles get blocked by anti-claim, we lynch largely at random from the remaining players, and Unsaid waits until NP2 to use his role - that scenario still leaves us with 4 night actions at best (that's if I Doc the right target or Luna survives and uses his role on the right target leaving us at 6-2, and you guys have no other roles to impede night actions) in a game where there were multiple CCs. Most of the remaining players would have been RB'd as a result of claiming in DP2, so a lot of the value of those night actions goes down after that.

And remember, that's best case scenario. If I chose the wrong target with my Doc or used a different role and Luna fails to block a kill, we would have gone down to 5-2 with just 3 possible night actions, meaning the game could still end NP2 if Unsaid misfired.

I get that there were errors here, but the second NK really breaks this game. If we don't stop it or get a solid lead on a scum player NP1, the odds of town winning go down precipitously, essentially just turning this into a game of whether Unsaid shoots the right target. That's absurdly swingy.

As others have said, the Lawyer/GF was not impossible, though I was ready and willing to dismiss the latter as a possibility. Mainly, it was that decision to call me out as sus this DP that did not make sense. I was literally the one with the most reason to vouch for you, and it made me question my results more than I already was.

As for the scenario you laid out, it makes sense... if we're not at MYLO. You can't confirm another player as town that way when losing the player in question ends the game.

Well... this was a very frustrating game.

I don't get the decision to give scum an extra NK because of the mod confirmation. That's overcompensating and it put us at MYLO way too early. Couple that with an effective RB on everyone who claimed and Unsaid's decision to shoot NP1 (still don't get that) and we were fucked going into DP2 regardless of what other roles Pie and REF had.

Also, the lack of will to push REF on his claim is still bonkers to me, cannot figure that one out beyond just Max and Awesome being absent/focused elsewhere.

This was... certainly something.

seriously, anyone, explain to me why we were so fucking precious about REF’s claim all DP long.

Well, that’s game. Got fucked by Awesome raging, right?

I have no idea how dumb you have to be to dismiss a COP CHECK

even suggesting that should be an instant policy lynch

Godfathers literally only maybe exist in massive games and are often considered semi bastard

This coming from the guy who said people should be calling for my lynch before yours? What kind of logic is that? Calling for extra attention on me when I was the only one with results that support you being town is ridiculous.

And I explicitly said I don’t think you’re the GF, though that’s apparently much more common here than in games you’ve played. I’m concerned about my results being Lawyered or my target changed. That’s it.

Also, it would be just wonderful if you were here to participate and didn’t just duck out after several posts. Or, you know, rage and dip as it seems you’re doing here.

I'm fine with eliminating Awesome at this point, but I can't for the life of me understand why we would let this DP pass without getting REF's claim. I can't fathom what he could possibly have that would justify just moving on without getting it.

As for why there are so many investigative and protective roles, maybe it's balanced by the way the game is setup. There were somehow two NKs and Unsaid had a role that gambled his life on who he targeted, making the game very swingy based on whether he hit right or not. Maybe scum have a lot of manipulative roles to affect all these investigations. I don't know. It's certainly not the first game where there was an abundance of roles that didn't make sense at face value with a lot of partial CCs, but the last time that happened, we were all 1X Masons to boot.

Given that whiteflame explicitly claimed a green peek on me, the fact that no one is saying anything about lynching whiteflame before me is so dumb

the lynch should strictly be between WF/Mikal

So… explain this to me. I copped you innocent, and your response to that is “lynch him first” or “lynch between him and Mikal”? This is such a baffling take, man.

I didn’t do anything because I have no idea if there is some kind of masonizer who needs verification or whatever

So rather than supporting your own claim, you focused instead on allowing someone else to confirm theirs? Why? Also, are you saying that if you had used it, your target couldn’t even recruit to a day chat? Because the way you’ve described your role so far doesn’t indicate anything about preventing recruitment, just not having the chat itself. Wouldn’t that confirm them and you simultaneously?

In role madness, chances are mafia has useful roles. There is no chance one of the scum members is given a shit role like mine

if I had something actually somewhat useful, I would have used it

Modpsych. You could have multiple roles, and could even have used one. Also, you did have something useful for your own confirmation and you chose not to use it.

From where I’m sitting, I genuinely doubt whether both yours and Mikal’s roles exist in the game. So either you’re scum or Mikal is scum from where I’m sitting at. However, if you’re both town, then from my POV it has to be exactly Awesome/REF.

Basically, you’ve summarized my thinking here. The balance in this game makes no sense with all the protective and investigative roles claimed. That being said, even I’m skeptical of the circumstances that would be required to be true for Mikal to be scum and, given that, Awesome almost certainly has to be. As for his partner, REF seems entirely plausible. If you are the Innocent Child, then either you’ll be dead, town-confirmed or sus next DP.

I would like all claims on the table before I decide, but it’s basically a certainty that Awesome is scum. Getting the big picture is the best thing. Also, why have you not pressured Awesome to full claim? Do you townread Awesome?

We already have his role and he’s been almost entirely unaccommodating when it comes to any kind of engagement most of this DP. I see that he posted some earlier and I’ll get to that, but I’m not townreading him. I also can’t dismiss my Cop result entirely.

You kind of are though. On one hand you’re saying Mikal doesn’t have to be scum, but on the other you’re saying because of our roles, he has to be scum. 

I’m saying that, when it comes to the balancing of this game, his and my roles both stick out. Considering balance is not chief among the factors I’m considering atm, Mikal’s role isn’t what I would consider proof positive that he’s scum. It’s concerning, but it’s not a given.

I’ll just shoot you a question point blank: what is your scum exactly scum team?

Until I get REF’s claim, I can’t say that the Awesome/REF team is the most likely, but that’s where I’m leaning currently.

He’s making me feel ready to throw up my hands and allow this to move through, but just because Awesome can’t be bothered to embody his name and actually engage to any degree doesn’t mean I’m going to just lynch him. We’ve got two other players. I want Max and Pie in the discussion. Until then, I won’t post a vote.

Big help, thanks. Not even going to provide any idea of who you think is scum at this point? It’s one thing if you don’t want to defend yourself, it’s another entirely to just sit this one out.

Going to be busy for the next few hours with work, taking a break from this. Still looking for anyone else to chime in.

Why on earth would Mikal fakeclaim bulletproof as scum if he were going this route? It literally has no utility to scum, aside from making their role even more ridiculous and sus. It has utility as a town because it would dissuade the NK.

It would explain why he's not the target of the NK despite claiming Caroler.

I am confirmed popular (that portion of my role is locked). So you are theorizing that as as confirmed popular scum. I took my partners fake claim, claimed an insane role to blend with the popular (which would take his fake clam) , have softed everything I said up until this point. In addition to town locking 2 people which then forced us to target them to take them out of the pool I put them in?

You can call it reaching if you want. Literally all you have to be is confirmed popular scum. If you are scum, the rest of this would just be built off of the towncred you gained from pointing out two players who were effectively mod-confirmed and building a plan to railroad someone the following DP with that fake claim. As for town-locking Luna and Thoth, effectively pre-selecting your NK targets is not out of the question.

But again, all this is WIFOM. You believe you're town confirmed. I do not. I think it's more likely you're town than not, but I can't just remove you from my POE given everything I know. I have no idea if you used your Caroler because no one got results, so literally the only element we can confirm is Popular, which has been scum several times in previous games. That confirmation doesn't move the needle.

If you thought it could get you fully townread as a result, sure, why not?

Now we're just getting into pure WIFOM. You can claim that town-locking two players who died and flipped town in the night makes you obvious town, but given that both of them died in the night, I'm hesitant to give you that much credit. Having other options available to you that would have looked scummier on their face doesn't change my mind.