Random Mafia - Be Afraid...Very Afraid

[QuietRain]

Hmm.  Still not to the point where I want to make a serious vote.  Things are finally moving, but not with enough momentum for me to get a feel on anyone.  Alex' schooling seems a little harsh, but not unwarranted, so nothing but a neutral read for me there.  Ciato's little flipping there seems odd, but again, not enough for me to do much but raise an eyebrow and keep watching her.  As is my usual, keeping my joke vote where it is until I see a good place to put a serious vote.

And, I agree that more posts from the water mammal=teh win.  I think 3 votes has gotten the point across enough that I don't need to add to it.  *pointy-type paw at the water mammal to hear more*...(but at a distance so as to not get the paw chewed off).

[AndrewRogue]

Ack. Forgot about this. Catching up right now!

[AndrewRogue]

Okay then!

As Alex says, talking about potential roles unless it is absolutely necessary is a bad idea, as clever thinking can result in spilling townies to scum.

Anyhow, I do agree that we need to hear a little more from the lurkers (this includes me, of course). We also lack a lot of material to go on at this point, which means that it is hard to move on to the serious play at this point. I do find it interesting that, at this point, there has been little interplay of joke votes, which is odd to me, given the history of our games, but that might well just be a random factor that there were no outstanding joke votes.

So, in general, let us chat more!

[Smodge13]

I do find it interesting that, at this point, there has been little interplay of joke votes, which is odd to me

I think that part is my fault, the joke votes stopped around the time the role discussion happened.

[Excal]

Having boldly GONE, to the...  OUTSIDE world!  I return!  To SEE, that serious times HAVE befallen US!

The words!  Of Smodge sound!  To ME, like those OF a cadet yet!  Learning his place!  His lesson seems learned, BUT!  If, it is not!  Then we can later, give HIM a firmer teaching!

And SO, we must focus on those!  Who shirk THEIR rightful duty by!  Not, showing up!  Otter has, already, been given ENOUGH attention!  And SO!  I vote FOR, the OTHER absent ensign!

##Vote: Zenthor

[Taishyr]

Augh, it looks as if this day might end before I return. I hate voting for lurkers on this alone, but I tire of the bad play lynches since... on further analysis, they never help out at all, it seems to me. If it causes smokescreen later, it can be handled later; arguments that this is ignoring scummy play fall flat because it's not scummy play, it's bad play, and while the twain can meet, they do as often as they don't. Argue this if you feel like it, but I have to consider it otherwise.

Mmmrg. And we have two lurkers. If I return, I'll look this vote over, but for now: Hatbot told me to vote for Otter.

##Unvote: Carthrat
##Vote: Zenthor

...and if you think I'd listen to the bot, gee, you're as demented as I'm supposed to be.

[Meeplelard]

##Unvote: Smodge13

Why? Cause I feel like something is odd here.

See, Zenny and Otter are both not posting, yes.  However, Zenny I haven't seen in chat or anything, so its possibly not lurking but him just not being on line or something.  MEANWHILE, I've seen PLENTY of Otter lately.  Which is to say, Otter has no excuse for not posting here, and given its Otter, it seems rather suspicious that he hasn't started ranting; he had a joke vote early on (I think?) and that's it.

Existing online but not posting is worse than Not Existing online at all; the latter implies something is wrong, lack of time, what have you.  If that's the case, Zenny should probably be Modkilled if it keeps up I guess.  The former implies lurking, meanwhile; Otter very much IS around, but he's either completely forgotten about this, or he's lurking and not posting.

EIther way...

##Vote: Otter

[OblivionKnight]

1) Quietrain (1): Zenny
2) Otter (4): Ciato, Yakumo, Carth, Meeple
3) Tai
4) EvilTom (0): <Dhyer>
5) Smodge (1): <Excal>, Alex, <Meeple>
6) Dhyerwolf (1): <Meeple>, Tom
7) Alex (0): <Carthrat>
8) Carthrat (0): <Tai>
9) Yakumo (0): <Alex>
10) Ciato
11) Meeple (1): Andrew
12) Andrew (1): Otter
13) Excal (0): <Smodge>
14) Zenny (4): Quietrain, Dhyer, Excal, Tai

<raspy voice of a dead girl>Seven Days...hours....</raspy voice of a dead girl>

With 14 alive, it takes 8 to kill

Once again, the mighty AIM dice will decide the fates if this is tied.

[OblivionKnight]

And as an added reminder:

START SENDING IN ALL NIGHT ACTIONS NOW IF YOU CAN!!!!

[QuietRain]

Bleh.  Time to get serious, I guess.  And instead of moving my joke vote to someone else, I'll keep it where it is and make it a real vote.  Zenny needs to post more.

[Otter]

All right, all right, I'm here.  Note, for Meep's sake, that my appearing for twenty seconds in IRC doesn't mean I'm lying around leisurely with tons of free time that can be directed at Mafia.

I don't think a normal townie Alex would go to this level of effort to make haiku posts if he were just doing it for kicks.  At this point, if he's town, I strongly suspect post restriction.  On the OTHER hand, I wouldn't put it past him to be a perfectly nilla scum who's putting on this act expressly for the purpose of persuading everyone he's a townie with a post restriction.  Or he could actually just be a scum with the restriction, of course, but that seems pretty mean on OK's part so it seems unlikely offhand.  The bottom line is that it probably makes him look a little better to me, but only a little, because I've grown paranoid enough to see signs of townishness also as possible signs of scum trying to look townish.  This may be counter-productively paranoid on my part, but I'm keeping all the possibilities in mind.

So, time to remove the jokevote.  ##UNVOTE: Andrew  (However, Andy, post more things that aren't just "I agree with x" in the future.)  I see no reason to lie; I have absolutely no problems going after a major lurker, especially if it's to keep myself alive, because if one of us has to go, I'd rather we lynched the one who might be a scum.  So, without prettying up the words at all, I'm going to jump on the Zenny wagon both to save myself and take out a maybe-scum lurker.  ##VOTE: Zenny

[Cotigo]

I, on the other hand, am laying around leisurely with tons of free time that can be directed at Mafia... but Team Fortress 2 and other games distracted me and I forgot!

Now, I know that's a shitty defense but what can you do?  It's the simple truth of the matter.

Now not a whole lot has gone on, jokevote phase and then "KILL ZE LURKERZ!" phase, still no real discussion as far as I can tell.  I can also tell that Otter and I appear to be the choices for lynching, for the same reason.  Admittedly, his real reason is definitely better than mine, but I do have some sense of survival instinct. 

##Unvote: Quietrain
##Vote: Otter

Since it's close to hammer and I'm on the chopping block, I might as well roleclaim, eh? 

I am Brave Sir Robin, master at the art of running away.  I've been able to get myself out of many horrible situations, and thus is my power.  However, we're in a confined space so that doesn't do a lick of good and I'm a vanilla townie. 

Wish there was more I could say, but honestly, there isn't.  There you have it.

[AndrewRogue]

I will agree I needed a better post. Just... bleh. Nothing telling this day one to really go off. Despite both being kinda lurky, neither Otter nor Zenny feels like a proper target. Lemme grab a bite and I'll swap votes after trying to figure out the proper victim.

[Smodge13]

Ok lets see, 2 Lurkers both with excuses, 1 role claim and the other hasn't, i'd rather not leave this up to random dice roll however we have 1 vanilla and 1 unknown, which is annoying because although the vanilla could be lying it's unlikely their a town power role, which means voting for the unknown could take out something important.

Zenthor i have never seen play a game so i don't know his playstyle, Otter however i have a good memory of his style in Tsukihime mafia and it was a lot more aggressive than this, even with his head on the chopping block he missed the whole Alex/Me fiasco and didn't comment at all, from my 1 previous experience he would pounce on things like that to great degree.

##Vote: Otter

I'm going to kick myself if this is wrong.

By the way i won't be here for the deadline, only putting this in because it's dead even and needs to swing at least one way, so if anything develops of importance i won't be here to remove my vote, normally i wouldn't vote at all because of this but thats not an option.

[QuietRain]

Smodge, out of curiosity, why did you say 'it's unlikely their a town power role'?  I mean, if we take the view that Zenny is lying, he could be lying either way (as scum or town).  Why unlikely to be a power role from a simple vanilla roleclaim?

[Smodge13]

Because, one of the key things Rat taught me when we played at university, it is rarely good for town to lie.

now i'm off.

[Excal]

He's specifying that Zenny probably isn't a town power role, while Otter could be.  He then votes for Otter anyways, after acknowledging that Zenny makes a good damage control vote, because Otter admitted that he doesn't have a great deal of free time right now.  And he finds a quiet Otter unnerving.

[Luther Lansfeld]

The one time I've seen Zenny play it has been as scum, and he was significantly more interactive in the game than he is here. I think he's of the personality type that would just enjoy playing the game more as scum.

[Otter]

Smodge: it looked a lot to me like Alex was criticizing you for what was, fairly enough, rather bad play.  He covered these things as well or better than I could, and since that discussion had already taken place, I didn't think it was useful to throw in another "I agree with Alex!"  In previous games, other players have accused me of being too wordy, and possibly hiding myself under paragraph upon paragraph of meaningless talk.  I never thought I did this, but I've tried to be more concise and stick to the main issue at hand.  Since you asked, though, yes, I agree with Alex, the way you were speculating wasn't really helpful and I have to wonder why you'd want to do scum's deduction for them.

Note that you recalled correctly.  I play Mafia aggressively as a rule, and I have a habit of latching onto anything fishy until I get some kind of clarification or justification.  There are a lot more tangible data when it's past day 1, though -- again, past experience has taught me that the things I "pick up on" when it's only day 1 are rather overwhelmingly prone to be false alarms.  So on the first day, I've decided to take note of whatever I see, but I'm reserving any accusations for after the first night's past, which is when I get some actual information to back up my suspicions.  Radical change, I know.

Anyway, looking at Zenny's post, I'm not even sure if he's read the topic or not; he writes off pretty much everything so far with "still no real discussion as far as I can tell."  He has a roleclaim to offer, but supplying fake claims to scum is pretty standard practice.  I'm not claiming because, for exactly that reason, I don't think it would help me one bit; then, if I survived, I'd have revealed myself, which is less than optimal for town.

[QuietRain]

*nods*  While I can certainly understand that it behooves town not to lie, I can also see where we would.  I mean, the point of the roleclaim is a sort of 'Don't lynch me, I'm one of you' things.  But if I expect/hope it works, I may not want the scum to know I have a power role and then NK me after I miss a lynch.  Therefore I claim 'vanilla'.  Especially if it's not just everyone jumping on the Lynch Me bandwagon, but instead it's between me and someone else that's racking up votes just as fast.

I mean, if I'm the only one racking up votes and I have a power role, then I need to make a very powerful statement if it gets close to the wire for the town not to lynch me.  Naming a power role is the best way to get the town to start to reconsider and take another look to ferret out the true scum.  A claim of vanilla will always garner you a lackluster believability at best.  When you're tied with someone, that's usually all you need because you only need a person or two to change their mind.  And then you get to keep your power role to yourself and away from the scum.

Now, having said all that, it's total WIFOM and I'm not saying I have any reason to believe Zenny has any such thing.  I'm just saying that a vanilla claim does not always=vanilla.  There are times when 'vanilla' is safer than the truth, both for yourself and for the town as a whole.  

Notice that I'm keeping my vote on Zenny rather than the water mammal because between the two, I've seen Otter get slow starts in 2 1/2 games now (this one was less of a slow start than the Discworld one), so I don't attribute his relative inactivity versus older games against him so much.  After a slow start, he's been pretty active in the games I've been watching.  And as Zenny is a new player for me, I'd rather keep the pressure on until either my gut says he's a townie or says someone else is more likely scum.

[Yakumo]

Error!  Error!  Furry aquatic mammal issues statement containing falsehood!  Activity in IRC contained significant discussion of Castlevania games as well as a statement that said creature had observed 24 transmissons of "Bokurano" within a 24 hour time period.  Time appears to have been available for use however desired.  Falsehood minimal but present.

[Cotigo]

Otter:

I read the topic.  There was a shitstorm between Smodge and Alex, yeah, but what of it?  In every game I've looked at or been in, shitstorms like that have ALWAYS been between two townies being paranoid for good reason.  Hal/Super.  Whoever it was in WoT.  There was one in Suikomafia that I don't recall.  It's not something I'd call discussion worth taking into account given previous experience.

Anyway, lying as town is bad in most cases.  Pretty much the only time lying ever helps town is if you're trying to pull off a Xanatos Gambit ala Captain K.  You have my word as a knight of the round table that I do not lie, for all the good it does me.

[Cotigo]

*That I don't recall who was involved in it.

That's what I meant to say. 

[Meeplelard]

Error!  Error!  Furry aquatic mammal issues statement containing falsehood!  Activity in IRC contained significant discussion of Castlevania games as well as a statement that said creature had observed 24 transmissons of "Bokurano" within a 24 hour time period.  Time appears to have been available for use however desired.  Falsehood minimal but present.

Silliness in style aside, I was actually thinking about that myself.  Otter, who are you trying to fool? "20 seconds in chat" is a bit of an embellishment, to say the least.

No, I don't expect you to devote a lot of time to Mafia...or rather, I am not saying you should (I do kind of expect you, cause well, its the way you are, but that's an aside); but if you have free time to do other stuff, as Yakko pointed out, you have free time to at least pop into Mafia and say something brief.

I dunno, you're trying to justify your not being here by claiming something that isn't true, or at least, twisting facts as so to make it seem like its not true.  I noted you were speaking on multiple occasions in the past day in chat.

[AndrewRogue]

Okay. Sorry about the delay. Page wasn't loading for the longest time.

Anyhow, we have two notable lurkers (one who has roleclaimed an unprovable matter for the moment, the other who hasn't) and one suspicious party who can't be dealt with at the moment (EvilTom). Zenny was quick to jump up defensively (not surprising, given the time frame we had). Generally speaking, at this juncture though, the worst looking one is Otter from what I have... Bleh.

##Unvote: Meep
##Vote: Otter