whiteflame

That leaves

Whiteflame

REF

Casey

I agree with this pool so far, even if I'd throw you in there as well.

Your vote is the best mechanism to develop reads

Not wrong, and we need to start somewhere.

VTL Casey

I'm happy with this if everyone's on board. Love muh soft claims.

I don't know if I came up with an actual means for us to softclaim in that post, at least not one that I'm comfortable with yet. We might just want to wait until next DP to get any kind of broader idea of what's going on with the setup, if only to give everyone the maximum chance to make best use of their roles. I might come up with something better by next DP, but I figure we either end this DP with a NL straight up or we push a single target and make our decision after they claim.

Anyway, I would like to progress this DP in some direction. I've given it some more thought and, at least for this DP, I'm going to oppose any kind of mass softclaim. The best I can think of is magical characters vs. non-magical ones, and I think that's bound to both invite some confusion and limit scum's likely choices for PRs, so I don't think it's worth the cost. Every other one I can think of just makes it too obvious who certain people would be based on their softclaims, so they're not worth it, either.

I will say that my character justification is surprisingly light on spoilers. It doesn't reveal much about my character beyond some personality and physical issues.

One thing I want - does anyone else have something in their PM which implies that there are dire consequences to character claims? You can just say you do, no need to elaborate.

Just checked again. I don’t see anything.

At this point, I'll just focus on preliminary thoughts based on what little I can glean from everyone's behavior.

Kohai's pushback on character claims comes off as slight town, even with the little bit of OMGUSing people on his wagon. His suspicion that character claiming is what will trigger the unknown anti-claim is odd since I don't know where he'd be getting that information on the setup aside from his character card, but I agree with Vader that Kohai tends to default to providing TMI when he's town, even if it's NAI to me so far.

Already stated my reasons for townreading Mag1c's claim, and I haven't seen much behaviorally from him to push against that. The reaction test on Kohai isn't unusual and he moved away from it pretty quick. Mag1c tends to gather a lot of information from various interactions and form reads based on seemingly disparate tidbits, which tracks with what he's doing so far.

Casey's always difficult for me to read early. I understand their caution on reading too much into Mag1c's character reveal, but it's an odd position to take given that the character was confirmed directly by Thoth. It's one thing to give scum a fake claim who is the MC of the show. It's quite another to have the mod straight up confirm that that is their character. Wryly mentioned that a theme split placing Madoka as scum would be hard to figure, and though I can certainly think of a couple, this would be a particularly odd scenario. I'd get into the why of that, but it would require talking about specific characters I expect to be in this game and I'd like to avoid that for now. I get Casey's point given the Deltarune game, just don't buy it here. I'll say null for now, want to see more than two posts from Casey.

Wryly's null as well. I like that she's thinking of theme splits and about the ways the dice roll could be featured in this game, though both are largely just shots in the dark at this point. Will have to see more from her later.

Too little here from Rex and Pie with one post apiece, the former just here to VTL Kohai (hopping on a growing bandwagon for no stated reason isn't the best look, but it's not a lot to go off of) and the latter just stating his distaste for the material.

Vader is slight town to me as well. He's thinking more through what the reveal means for Mag1c along pretty similar lines to me, pointed out that the pressure on Kohai seemed to spike out of nowhere, and I get his concerns about me. Also, rightfully spitting straight facts about One Piece. It do be about pirates.

I’ll pick this back up tomorrow morning.

What's the point of outing this?

I wanted to draw attention to the fact that the OP says that, if you have a hidden mechanic, you will be informed of it in your character card. I assume you were? I also figured it would be a detail I could provide with no risk that wouldn’t trigger anti-claim mechanics.

Wtf, why yall watching this shit. Low key kinda creepy

Because it’s a subversion of a lot of typical magical girl show tropes and goes to some fascinating places.

I'd be cautious about leaning too hard on this sort of analysis. It's not all too uncommon for protagonists to be scum - hell, I made the main two characters of Deltarune the scum team in my game. Granted, I'd agree that he's more likely town than scum, but I'd still only put him in lean town at best based on his character.

I’m less focused on the fact that he’s the MC and more on the combination of that fact with the mechanic. I don’t see it as terribly likely that Thoth would give Mag1c a character that solid and then use a hidden mechanic to reveal that he has her. It just seems exceedingly weird for scum.

I wonder if that triggers anti claim

Honestly have no idea, but I would think anti-claim is in place to prevent us from claiming, so it would be pretty messed up if a triggered hidden mechanic where the mod confirms your character triggers something.

Alright, well that's one of the obvious ones down with the Madoka reveal. In case the title of the series didn't give it away, she is a main character in the series and its central focus throughout most of this season. Bit of context (and yes, this is where I have to get into spoilers): she spends much of the series avoiding making a contract with Kyubey before deciding to make a wish in the end that effectively makes her into a benevolent god of this world. Doesn't make Mag1c 100% town since we don't know the theme split, but I'd say it's far more likely that he's town than not.

If anyone is forced to claim them kt should be a soft role claim. Absolutely no character claims.

Fair point. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Just to clarify because it may not have come across, "a known entity" is a claim, not a certainty. And in the event that we don't have a strong scumread and decide to NL, I agree no one should character claim DP1.

If it's between lynching blind and lynching a known entity, absent any other context, I'd choose the latter the vast majority of the time.

I recognize, however, that it may not be that kind of choice. With an even number of players, a NL might make the most sense at the end of this DP. Depends if we have a strong enough scumread.

Under no circumstance should we character claim this day phase nor should we even hint to it.

Largely agreed, hence I'm not providing a character list. If we get to the point where we're pushing a lynch, that calculus might change, but no one should be character claiming at this point.

Damn this went up late last night.

It's another theme I know very well, though it's been a good while since I've seen the show. Long and short of it, for those who don't know:

Madoka Magica is a mahou shoujo (magical girl) series about a group of middle school students who are approached by an effectively immortal Pokémon-looking creature called Kyuubey. He offers to grant their wishes and turn them into magical girls to fight creatures called witches that create their own little pocket dimensions where the animation gets crazy. I'll avoid spoilers unless necessary, but the long and short of it is that this isn't a sweetheart deal and, unlike most magical girl series, shit gets fucked up pretty fast and often. It's a story about obsession, sacrifice, and regularly rides the line between hope and despair. Yep, pretty upbeat.

Like last game, I have some idea of who is most likely to be in this one, but I'm going to avoid listing them out directly for now. With 8 players, we can expect the breakdown to contain some subset of these:

Five magical girls

One duplicitous asshole magical creature

One infamous witch

Two friends

One or two parents

One teacher

So there is a little more room this time for fake claims. Thoth's also apparently given scum some info on claims and/or just straight up fake claims. There could be an anti-claim mechanic in play, so keep that in mind before seeking out claims. Also, I'm not fishing for anyone to state this, but my character card does not include any mention of a hidden ability.

Yeah, I don't blame you for either sussing me for it (wasn't for the lynch, but kinda got dragged along with it). That being said, while the Jinu-Rumi pairing would have made sense, you'd have to believe that Rumi is a Silencer, and I can't see it. Gwi-Ma made a lot more sense with that role.

Current Games:

None

Sign-ups:

Thoth - Madoka Magica Mafia

In the Hopper:

Whiteflame - Barry Mafia

Vader - Heartbreaking Chicago Bears Moments

Pie - MAGA Mafia

Mikal - Hero Academia Mafia

REF - Ruyi Zhuan Mafia

Lunatic

Savant - Andor Mafia

On Hold:

AnonymousIcon

Wylted - Lulsec

Especially since I was sussing whiteflame for it more than I was sussing Pie.

I kinda get that. It looked like we were on the verge of either NLing or getting Vader, who was a bit of a black box to me at the time. I was buying at least a little into Pie's narrative that it could be either you or Vader, which was obviously a mistake.

It was a good call, though I definitely would have avoided saying anything about your character name giving your role away. That made it a bit too obvious and I wasn't even seeking that information. Really would have believed you could be Bobby or one of the animal characters in this setup.

I do think Pie has a point that this was pretty town-sided, though the game was bound to be slanted one way or the other, kind of hard to avoid there being some imbalance. I thought he did a pretty good job regardless, didn't have him pegged until the moment NP2 started.

Was a little frustrated coming off of the back-and-forth with Luna, though honestly, by the end of it, he had me pretty convinced he was town. I just needed confirmation thereof, figured since Pie was almost certainly scum that I'd be best off ensuring that Luna was town rather than having a heads-up over my sudden decision to target Pie and get a scum result at the exact right time.

Bit of a rocky return to mafia, but I still appreciate the setup and bold decision with the Doomed RB Mharman, so thanks for designing the game and for the extensive discussion of it. Honestly wouldn't have thought to ask if a Silencer could self-target but I should.

Love my anime, but we have to do something different. I’ll give it some thought, either do some history or historical fiction.

Well, I’ve made my case, don’t have anything to add with Pie having disappeared. If Luna doesn’t end up voting, scum automatically win with the NK, so I hope he’ll at least make some decision.

/in. Given the number of games that have been based on east Asian content, I might retool my design to change up themes, but I would love a Madoka Magica game.

I disagree with both of those assessments as a debater and a mafia player, but that decision is entirely up to you. If that's your choice, I hope that you choose to return one day and like Thoth said, you will be missed.

One last thing that comes to mind. This is hardly the first time that, when pushed to claim last of all, Pie has claimed he was Vanilla all along. Just check out his play in the Paper Mario Mafia game. Dude did the exact same thing with Goomba King and rode this same exact argument to a win.

https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/12040-paper-mario-mafia-epilogue

I'm comfortable voting at this point. I can't see a world in which Pie makes these kinds of arguments, especially after chewing over all three DPs for so long, and isn't scum. Couple that with the investigation results and this is an easy choice:

VTL Pie

I'll leave it to you to decide how this goes. I've laid out my case.

The first is that Supa was the only one familiar with the theme besides Whiteflame himself. The second is that Supa at a minimum had an FOS on whoever claimed Rumi, which is what Whiteflame just claimed (and likely soft claimed—see next few arguments). It makes logical sense to silence him because WF would be dictating theme knowledge all of the DP and could avoid the suspicion that would come if he ever had to claim Rumi.

So... hold up. Your argument is that I chose to Silence Supa because he had "feelings" about the Rumi claim (note: both posts you reference came before the Jinu flip, which strongly suggested Rumi wasn't scum), only to then decide to push someone else entirely (Luna) and have to be convinced by you to shift to Vader at the last minute? Really? I'm all for WIFOM nonsense, but this is pretty extreme.

First things first, Cop does not make sense at from a balance perspective at all. A Cop + Doctor + 3 Vanillas and then scum have a one night Roleblocker who also dies the next DP and the other scum is likely just a Silencer. That is extremely weak for scum because one cop investigation on the Silencer, and the game is over. Not to mention the fact that the Doctor can perma protect the Cop and scum have no recourse until they identify the Doctor. Scum would literally have to play perfectly by killing both the Doctor first, RBing the Cop, and then killing Cop to even have a shot of winning. The odds of that are astronomical. 

Last DP, you argued that there was "probably an investigative role" (see: post #115) with all the same knowledge beyond the three Vanillas being in this game, but all of a sudden, this balance doesn't make sense? When did your perspective shift on this? Because those Vanillas certainly didn't change the balance dramatically against scum, did they? Also, you said your argument was all WIFOM, but this is pure modpsyche and also pretty damn weak, especially coming from you.

Let's lay this out:

You are seriously arguing that town only has one PR, a Doctor. To do so, you are throwing out your own established logic regarding the existence of an investigative role. Wonder how you arrived at that conclusion... oh, right, there was a one-time scum RB that flipped (odd considering Pie apparently wants us to believe that scum would have had a ONE IN FIVE CHANCE OF HITTING A TOWN PR, and, oh yeah, A SILENCER IN A GAME WHERE NO ONE CAN GET INFORMATION FROM AN INVESTIGATION. That one in particular just takes the cake because somehow Pie believes that scum had two roles that were incredibly low utility given a town team with only one Doc, but to him, that balance makes so much more sense than one where scum are given roles that directly respond to town PRs. By the by, this is how Mharman taught me to craft my setups: make sure scum have a response to everything town can do with their PRs. He's not just throwing in a Silencer for the fun of it. He's not giving scum a Doomed RB only to give them a one in five chance of hitting a target of any worth. This is some awful modpsyche on every level.

Also, it’s awfully convenient that WF chose to reveal that he was roleblocked in DP3. Small but also significant is that he didn’t say who he investigated NP1. It was a complete afterthought on his part which implies that he never thought about who he investigated NP1 (likely because he couldn’t because he isn’t the Cop). A town WF would 100% reveal that they were roleblocked during DP2, and a town WF would definitely reveal who they attempted to investigate NP1. It’s especially more suspicious considering he was wishy washy all day yesterday. 

It doesn't particularly matter who I tried to investigate DP1 (btw, it was you), but this argument is probably your worst one yet. The flip told us the scum RB was dead, so not only did I know how my Cop role was prevented, but I knew that as long as I wasn't the target of the NK, I could still make use of it. What, if any, incentive was there for me to out that I was the Cop with full knowledge that I could still use it? What was the value in revealing that I'd been the target of the RB? In both cases, all it would do was make me a target for the NK. Terrible tactic.

He’s basically saying Rumi is an outlier for certain themes, even though that’s his character and is saying he’s town, which doesn’t make much sense cause there’s no reason to bring that up in the first place. So I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he was trying to soft claim here, which also doesn’t really make much sense unless he’s trying to plant the seed to gain town cred later. Now the second part. I’ve been adamant that it makes sense to give the non-weak scum as much survivability as possible because if they die, the game ends. That survivability comes in the form of a strong fake claim ie Rumi and Cop. I am Bobby (a relatively minor character). This was known the second I claimed my gender. And I’m also Vanilla (not a really strong fake claim with a bunch of other vanillas around). I sort of hinted at it last DP cause I didn’t really mind claiming (and tbh would’ve been fine with dying, but I have trust issues). It’s why I was reasonably confident that Luna was town because it doesn’t make sense to have Vanilla as a fake claim especially when I am Vanilla as well. Why would Mharman give Vanilla as a fake claim if it’s going to be sussed by the other vanillas in the game.

A) This wasn't a softclaim. I don't know where you're getting that. I was laying out what I thought was the best route for softclaims and contrasting it with an alternative I didn't think would work. Whether Rumi was my character or not, I would have made the same point.

B) So, hold up. Your argument is that, at this point, with two flipped Vanillas and another Vanilla I've Copped innocent, it's somehow a good defense of you claiming Vanilla now because Mharman wouldn't have given you a Vanilla fake claim? Maybe last DP this would have held up, but it's fucking rich this time around. You know the claim has cover now. Whatever claim Mharman gave you, it's worth far less to you than just claiming Vanilla at this point and blending into the crowd using the same argument Luna gave last DP. Maybe this would have mattered more if you'd given this claim last DP, but by now, you've clearly got a much greater incentive to just pretend you're Vanilla.

Been busy at work, I will reread everything and post as soon as I can

It's just the two of us, do what you have to do.

Pretty clear we’re there.

Alright, apparently still waiting on Pie to post. Also, lol @Mharman about the whole LYLO thing.