[TOWN WINS] Third Anniversary Fanfic Mafia - Game Thread

[Flyg0n]

[[Well, Free speaking up and clarifying makes me feel, for now, less sus of them. So there's that.

And I always feel weird voting almost at random, but I guess thats the game? idk. People have explained the logic before but it never tracks to me.

Anyways I'm reviewing the player list atm but nothing is pinging me hard? Maaayyybee idk? starlight? but....

What's mailmans usual utility? I guess its a decent way to communicate between known town members. But if its restricted then what good would it be? Maybe this message was just sent to test... ]]

 

[Chibi Pika]

[[ Question, but how come most of you think it's bad for town not to vote on D1? I understand that doing nothing and letting the mafia pick people off is bad, but wouldn't mislynching someone be even worse? I don't think we have any solid leads at the moment, so we'd essentially be lynching someone at random. There's 14 players left, so even if we assume there's 4 mafia and 1 third party, that means there are currently 9 players that are town. In other words, if we lynch someone at random there's roughly a 64% chance we mislynch someone. ]]

"I just wanna make people fight cuz if they fight, then they'll say the wrong thing and give themselves away," Jet replied with a self-satisfied grin. It was a smart plan and she came up with it by herself without her dumb Voice saying anything.

[[I'll... explain a bit better. I don't mind abstaining and tbh I'm usually in favor of it because the last thing I wanna do is random-lynch the cop or something. The problem is that if we all agree on abstaining without any dissent or attempts at voting, there's not much to sus people for come Day 2. In Namo's last game we abstained two days in a row which was pretty much the most embarrassing thing to happen in the history of the TR meta. ]]

 

[Panoramic_Vacuum]

[[It's a Pokémon item.]]

Steven's brow furrowed in thought again. "Well unless you're somehow getting the Lilycove Department Store flyer in this void, maybe it is something useful for the game? I guess the only way to tell is to see if the item actually does something later on its own."

[[Well that's at least more relevant than Mr. Rodger's Neighborhood.]]

 

[Starlight Aurate]

[[Hi I only have a few minutes so Imma try to be quick.

[[Jackie here. Not getting any particularly strong scumvibes off anyone, and the heavy RP is somewhat obfuscating, so I don't have a vote. And that bothers me. I don't wish to abstain, you see. The more mafia games I play, the more I realise that starting vote bandwagons is one of the main resources Town has to acquire information based on who gets on the wagon and who gets defensive about it. I know it's not the TR social meta, and I know it's less attractive in role madness, but I've spent enough time thinking about it to decide that no-lynch earlygame weakens Town's social meta going forward. I'm going to think about this some more and discuss it with my hydra partner and decide on a vote, probably someone who's done pure RP or barely posted.]]

[[Shoot I'm sorry the RP has been hiding stuff! I can keep it to a minimum or stop altogether, if that'll be more helpful.]]

I think the players I'm most cautious of are Inke and maybe pano and starlight? Starlight felt scummy in Namo's game but then turned out to be the cop. But Inke's current posts have pinged me as not being what I'm used to from her. Idk I might be overthinking. And additionally I don't think I've played in a game where inke was town before so I don't have much to compare against lol.

[[Just curious, but what do I do that comes off as scummy? I admit, I don't have much to point in favour of my innocence now, but I also don't know what much I can really say on D1.]]

I'll... explain a bit better. I don't mind abstaining and tbh I'm usually in favor of it because the last thing I wanna do is random-lynch the cop or something.

[[When has such a thing ever happened, especially D1 ]]

[[Okay, I don't have much to off of either. I got a random message last night, and unless the thing Free said about messages being pre-selected, then I don't think mine made any sense. Nobody is really pinging me hard...? I always hate going after people who have been busy with real life stuff, and the most I feel I can do otherwise is go after an inactive. I really don't know what to do ._. If there's more activity and I can come on before EOD, maybe I can come up with a vote.]]

 

[DawningWinds]

[[ Question, but how come most of you think it's bad for town not to vote on D1? I understand that doing nothing and letting the mafia pick people off is bad, but wouldn't mislynching someone be even worse? I don't think we have any solid leads at the moment, so we'd essentially be lynching someone at random. There's 14 players left, so even if we assume there's 4 mafia and 1 third party, that means there are currently 9 players that are town. In other words, if we lynch someone at random there's roughly a 64% chance we mislynch someone.

Don't get me wrong, I think voting for inactives is a good strategy when there's not a lot of information, but I just wonder if it makes sense to already do that on D1. ]]

[[No, mislynching is not worse. Actual lynches are, factually speaking, never entirely random; they're based on some semblance of suspicion at the very least, and looking back at the votes is a great way to help understand the remaining players' alignments, increasing the odds of the next day being a correct lynch.]]

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

[[Jackie here. Been having supper, watching Turning Red, and catching up with Dodran Phantasms. Yellow's been playing without me while I've been busy. I have couple hours before I sleep, in between Dodra posting, and I'll discuss soome thoughts with Yellow. I'm still not getting any particular scumvibes off anyone, personally. I don't know what to make of the mailman conundrum as it stands, since we have very little information right now. Perhaps we'll know more after another night's round of messages. Does anyone have any fresh contributions?

As for the lynch vs no-lynch D1 issue, I've generally overvalued information versus fast elimination in previous games, and I don't believe the town power roles are all so important that we can't afford any mislynches. Anyway, besides seeing how people react, or rather, prompting scum to make blunders, there's another good reason to eliminate someone today, but it's numerical rather than social, so I'll type it up in a separate post.]]

 

[DawningWinds]

The only reason I could see sussing Free is that by bringing up the messages, the intention was purely to waste our time (which it kind of did, but at the same time now we know there is a mailman in the game, perhaps two, and that's more info than we had prior). But that wasn't the reason given, so I'm not sure I agree with your vote.

[[It was not stated as reason, no; it did not occur to me to list that separately from "trying to look like she's doing something" as in my mind those are incredibly similar things that aren't worth separating generally. If you're pretending to be doing something, it's likely you're wasting people's time in the process.]]

 

[NeoLurosa]

>>> [[I think at this point, it’s best to just let the mailman thing rest since we aren’t getting anywhere with it for now. The fact that both of these messages sound nonsensical makes me think that they were both some sort of test? But of course we can’t be too careful, it’s possible the item or the quote means something…I dunno. There doesn’t appear to be any clear code, as far as I can tell.

I *personally* am not opposed to abstaining—I usually don’t like to do it because it feels like we make ourselves into sitting ducks by doing so, but I also understand that the risk of mislynch is really high on the first day with so little info. DW does raise a good point though, that even if we do mislynch, we can still glean a lot of info from it. I guess we just have to decide if it’s worth the risk or not. —Yellow]]

 

[NeoLurosa]

[[Shit, sorry, used my main account for a second there because it has the same goddamn avatar as this one.]]

[[Jackie here. Been having supper, watching Turning Red, and catching up with Dodran Phantasms. Yellow's been playing without me while I've been busy. I have couple hours before I sleep, in between Dodra posting, and I'll discuss soome thoughts with Yellow. I'm still not getting any particular scumvibes off anyone, personally. I don't know what to make of the mailman conundrum as it stands, since we have very little information right now. Perhaps we'll know more after another night's round of messages. Does anyone have any fresh contributions?

As for the lynch vs no-lynch D1 issue, I've generally overvalued information versus fast elimination in previous games, and I don't believe the town power roles are all so important that we can't afford any mislynches. Anyway, besides seeing how people react, or rather, prompting scum to make blunders, there's another good reason to eliminate someone today, but it's numerical rather than social, so I'll type it up in a separate post.]]

 

[DawningWinds]

In Namo's last game we abstained two days in a row which was pretty much the most embarrassing thing to happen in the history of the TR meta

That's happened a couple times here now hasn't it? I think we ended up doing that in White Elephant as well. Abstaining doesn't get us anywhere. We learn absolutely nothing from it, which as the game you just referenced indicates, can lead to further abstaining that just lets Mafia's nightkilling control the game a lot more.

 

[Inkedust]

With a snort, Altair stood up and tackled the pretty boy, pinning him down from his back. "Alright, fun's over. It looks like we're finally beginning to get somewhere."

[[Yo. Morning, gonna post a few thoughts here. Can't be bothered quoting so I'm gonna address everything broadly.

Main reason I've been feeling a lot more 'passive' here is because literally nothing has happened. I already said that the main topic for today felt unproductive overall and had nothing to add there. I do agree with Jackie in that Abstain D1 Bad b/c we can determine how folks react to certain wagons and get solid reads off them but again, with what we're seeing now we may just as well spin a roulette wheel and hope it lands on scum and not a major info-role.

IIIIIIIIII'm not liking Yellow's immediate jump on DW as soon as they've finally appeared. Chibi's vote I understand, but Yellow comes off as wanting to start a wagon on an easy target. Definitely something to side-eye atm.

Currently, I have no strong reads at all but the biggest blips on my radar are the ones who aren't saying much more than "Yeah I agree" not offering anything substantial. Bench, Virgil, and Tetra are currently part of this pile. If I had to vote for someone, it'd probably be them but I don't feel anywhere near good about it.

...I actually don't have any solid Town reads now that I think of it.]]

 

[NeoLurosa]

[[Howdy! Jackie again, posting an argument in favour of D1 eliminations.

Point 1: eliminating earlier means more chances to get it wrong.

If the game starts with an odd number of players, not eliminating someone reduces the chances for Town to miseliminate before game-loss by one, leaving aside the influence of power roles.

In a 9-player game with 2 scum, assuming only a single nightkill and no vigilantes, Town loses after three miseliminations. If you no-elimination on D1, you lose after two, leaving you only one chance to get it wrong. Obviously having a larger group and abundant power roles can change the numbers here dramatically, but it demonstrates the idea.

Point 2: Town-controlled kills are the only means of winning the game, and you want as many as possible.

Kills by Mafia will generally be exclusively against Town. Eliiminations have some chance of killing Mafia.

Let's return to that 9-player setup.

In the scenario where Town doesn't eliminate on D1 and the Mafia kill nightly:

Day 2: 6 town, 2 scum. (25% chance of hitting scum)
Day 3: 4 town, 2 scum. (33% chance of hitting scum)

In the scenario where Town instead goes for the kill:

Day 2: 5 town, 2 scum. (28.5% chance of hitting scum)
Day 3: 3 town, 2 scum. (40% chance of hitting scum)

This demonstrates that Town's odds of victory are numerically better each day if they eliminate on the first, albeit in a vacuum without considering power roles and such. Even considering power roles, fewer targets means better odds of Doctor and Cop successes, too. It means closing in on the Mafia and leaving fewer places to hide.]]

 

[DawningWinds]

[[Dragonfree's readpost is generally pretty good There's some things I disagree; with her thoughts on Sind don't really make a whole lot of sense to me, I'm not sure what about her play would've rubbed Free the wrong way because even if I don't personally find it huglely scummy the Mudsdale debacle was definitely weirds as heck. I've already given my thoughts on NeoLurosa and they haven't particularly changed, but from what I remember of I think the one time I played with town Yellow the read does seem reasonable.

Her Chibi read is pretty much exactly where I'm at, I'm just a bit more tentative, and while I'm not remotely sure on Abra I do think she makes a good point.

Overall I think I'm okay with Free for now.
Unvote: Dragonfree]]

 

[Chibi Pika]

That's happened a couple times here now hasn't it? I think we ended up doing that in White Elephant as well. Abstaining doesn't get us anywhere. We learn absolutely nothing from it, which as the game you just referenced indicates, can lead to further abstaining that just lets Mafia's nightkilling control the game a lot more.

[[Strong disagree that we get no info from it, as so long as there's discussion and disagreement on whether to vote, there's something to go on later. 2nd anni began with abstain but I had decent pings on 3/6 of the mafia by the end of it. That said, it doesn't work if no one attempts to vote.

tl;dr: I maintain that abstaining can have merit in role madness. Abstaining with no one even casting any votes is always bad.]]

"Who said you could talk!" Jet snapped at the Voice. She wasn't sure where it was, exactly, so she couldn't glower at it. She settled on flicking her tails dismissively.

"Anyway I hear a lotta people yapping but not a lotta voting. I already voted the Nickit but I wanna vote more! I'm gonna vote the Luxray and the fancy human and the--"

[[Jet, please =__=]]

 

[Sinderella]

[[Since I'm gonna be busy later tonight and probably not around for EoD, here's my readlist. Spoiler alert, almost everyone is pretty null to me right now.

Antares/Abra: I know I've already said why I feel the way I feel in terms of the Mudsdale comment, but allow me to further elaborate while I'm still stuck on it and why I am still eyeing them as soft sus. Last game, Namo's game, where I was indeed scum, Abra latched onto another very innocent comment I made and casted a vote/sus on me because of, and I quote, "their vibes." So the fact that they went ahead and latched onto ANOTHER innocent comment of mine and tried to see it as something suspicious pinged me because 1.) Felt like they were trying to go at me again for another very very small thing and 2.) I remember Abra's scum play being extremely "jumpy" in Humble Vale, so it really struck me as "Oh I was told to scumhunt, AH LOOK SOMETHING I CAN POINT OUT TO SCUMHUNT AH I'M TRYING TO BE HELPFUL SO I DON'T LOOK SUS AS FUCK." So, hopefully that explains why I've latched so hard onto it for now. But I will once again reiterate that it is mostly GUT VIBES, which is why I'm hesitant to vote on it, but not so much so to keep it in sights, especially given not much else is coming out of today.

Also, might I add that they were just pinged for reads by Jackie/Yellow and all they said was "I have nothing." They were VERY gung ho to try digging into me until everyone collectively told them the line of thought wasn't tracking, but when presented the opportunity to perhaps further scumhunt with a clearer line of thought, they dodged it? Just saying.

Altair/Inkedust: It took Windskull mentioning it, but now that I've gone back and re-read Inke's posts, I've noticed that she hasn't been as...aggressive as I recall her being in the last two games I've played with her. If I remember correctly, in Humble Vale and Namo's Role Overdrive, she was pretty damn on top of trying to keep everyone "on track" and moving forward if the group collectively got stuck on a dead end or on something that didn't really matter. She's been fairly limited with the contents of her posts this D1, and has mostly been sticking to RP. Basically the only thing she's offered so far in terms of "keeping people on track" is "yeah mailman thing is moot" after it had already been decided it's moot. Feeling soft sus right now, but she's since posted more as I was typing this so let me read and revisit this one.

Jet/Chibi: After scanning back through the posts again, I am GENUINELY confused about why people are reading Chibi so soft town when...I don't feel like they've offered much to the discussion aside from agreeing with certain posts and starting the vote on Nefari/DawningWinds. At most they feel very neutral-ish. Idk I usually feel like I see more attempts at puzzling things together from them and I haven't. So the immediate soft town reads from some of the posted readlists are really throwing me. Did I completely glaze over something, or?

Nefari/DawningWinds: While I did mention I was willing to throw in the vote for them due to inactivity, now that they are here and contributing, I don't really think they're very much on my radar anymore. Their annoyance at being vote trained for their inactivity for most of the day (for very valid reasons might I add) seems genuine, and while it in no way is indicative of their alignment thus far, I'm willing to shove them to neutral right now.

Rascal/Flyg0n: Also moderately inactive, and also for very good reason (feel better soon bby). I haven't garnered much from their posts, but I DID like how they pointed out the possibility of a JOAT--strikes me as them at least attempting to be helpful while being sickbrained, and trying to look into facets that other people have not yet. Neutral-ish right now. I need to see more from them before I can be certain.

Archie/Starlight: I love you but you're a fucking enigma to me lol. All I really have from you is that you got a Mailman message about Mr. Roger's Neighborhood. I also have a habit of reading you scum when you're actually not scum, so like. Neutral and I'm not touching you with a ten foot pole until we get further into the game lol.

Jackie/Yellow/Neo/Lurosa: I am getting hella bad vibes from the vote against DW, though that might be my personal bias because I feel like abstaining right now. However, I do see that they are genuinely trying to do some puzzling, and what has really stood out to me is Jackie complaining about the excessive RP--when we were scum together, I very CLEARLY recall Jackie suggesting that scumteam do some heavy RP to stall any extra deliberation on votes and keep people busy. There's a lot of RP happening that I think scum!Jackie would be all for continuing to happen, if I'm on track with my thinking. Very, very soft town right now, I say hesitantly.

Karo/SikeSaner: Extremely neutral right now. I see them offering a little to the discussion about the mailman and whatever, but I don't remember seeing much after. I've never played with Sike so I'm more or less sitting back and letting their posts compile before I really go in for a harsh read. Another person I'm really not touching right now.

Steven/Panoramic_Vacuum: Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhh neutral-ish. Most of their posts are primarily just RP and trying to make sense of whatever is going on, so I don't really have much for them. Kind of like Chibi, I feel like I usually see them being a little more out there with their puzzling of things, and they've mostly just been kinda flail-y/trying to figure things out-ish right now. Could be genuine, could be trying to get the hang of playing scum because I don't think Pano has ever rolled scum? Wary.

Kichiro/Virgil134: Also neutral. I haven't seen them add too much to the conversation much either or say anything that warrants extra looking. I haven't played with them either so also setting that aside until I hear more from them.

Muse/Windskull: Right now, I feel pretty good about them. Fairly soft town feels from their posts, but they are few and far between. I kind of want to see more, but what I have seen seems pretty helpful to start.

May/Dragonfree: I don't really know, I have admittedly only skimmed Free's posts and nothing is striking me as particularly out of the ordinary or weird? Suffice to say that could go either way in terms of her, soooooo I'm neutral until I can maybe read a little more.

Burhalla/IFBench: Not offering much, but playing the same as I've always seen them play. Neutral.

There have been a lot of posts as I was typing this out so some of this is subject to change after going through them and seeing what's being said, but this is where I stand right now. Feel free to combat me because I have a history of Speedreader Syndrome(TM) and glazing over important shit. I am also notoriously bad at getting reads D1 so please donut roast LOL]]

 

[Inkedust]

Altair/Inkedust: It took Windskull mentioning it, but now that I've gone back and re-read Inke's posts, I've noticed that she hasn't been as...aggressive as I recall her being in the last two games I've played with her. If I remember correctly, in Humble Vale and Namo's Role Overdrive, she was pretty damn on top of trying to keep everyone "on track" and moving forward if the group collectively got stuck on a dead end or on something that didn't really matter. She's been fairly limited with the contents of her posts this D1, and has mostly been sticking to RP. Basically the only thing she's offered so far in terms of "keeping people on track" is "yeah mailman thing is moot" after it had already been decided it's moot. Feeling soft sus right now, but she's since posted more as I was typing this so let me read and revisit this one.

[[Bro...I was the one to suggest that the tangent was dumb to begin with. Also I wasn't Town in those games :V]]

 

[DawningWinds]

Strong disagree that we get no info from it, as so long as there's discussion and disagreement on whether to vote, there's something to go on later. 2nd anni began with abstain but I had decent pings on 3/6 of the mafia by the end of it. That said, it doesn't work if no one attempts to vote.

tl;dr: I maintain that abstaining can have merit in role madness. Abstaining with no one even casting any votes is always bad.

[[Power roles can't solve the game on their own. There's more value in the infornation we get on the entire game from their lynch than what any power role could give us on a few people. I can't think of a singal power role that can give information about every player around. It's not worth losing out on that to keep a PR alive, even something like Cop. (Note: My experiences may vary due to usually playing in games with Millers and Godfathers.)

I'll give you that you can learn stuff from an abstain day as long as there's decent discussion, but you're not learning anything from the abstain itself. You do learn things from an actual lynch; seeing other players interactions with the lynched player based on their host-confirmed alignment can tell you a lot.]]

 

[Sinderella]

[[Bro...I was the one to suggest that the tangent was dumb to begin with. Also I wasn't Town in those games :V]]

[[Did you? I swore I read it after the fact but maybe I have the timeline out of wack 🤷🏼‍♀️ Thanks for clarifying.

Also, good point. 🤡]]

 

[Inkedust]

Did you? I swore I read it after the fact but maybe I have the timeline out of wack 🤷🏼‍♀️ Thanks for clarifying.

Altair laid down on the featureless ground, prodding its malleable surface. He seemed to be bored with the current conversation.

[[I'm not sure if I can fully subscribe to the idea of a Mafia mailman because it feels...weak. If there is one with the intent to deceive/throw off Town, then I don't get why the message would contain nonsense (though we'd probably need a wider pool than just N0 to try to confirm this). As a whole I feel that this entire convo regarding mailmen has been on the more unproductive side seeing that it's mostly speculation at this point. The messages being different doesn't confirm that they weren't sent by the same person.

Parrot theory can probably be thrown out the window though. Not dismissing the possibility of there being one in the game entirely, but if there is, they didn't use their action on the mailman.

Don't have that much more to add, tbh. Gonna wait for more info to pop up before I make another comment.]]

[[Anyway, I had a look back and yeah, I was one of the first to bring up that the covno was unproductive. Prior to that, it was all about Mudsdale and how two messages were sent last night.]]

 

[DawningWinds]

Vote: NeoLurosa
I've thought it over some, and I don't think my scumread on them is pure OMGUS nonsense, the vote on me feels genuinely bad. In addition to yhings that I've previously stated, I think they've both kinda acknowledged that they don'y see me as scummy by this point but left on the vote making me the leading wagon because ???.
I admit it also does help me feel more confident I'm not making things up seeing other people have the same impression.

After scanning back through the posts again, I am GENUINELY confused about why people are reading Chibi so soft town when...I don't feel like they've offered much to the discussion aside from agreeing with certain posts and starting the vote on Nefari/DawningWinds. At most they feel very neutral-ish. Idk I usually feel like I see more attempts at puzzling things together from them and I haven't. So the immediate soft town reads from some of the posted readlists are really throwing me. Did I completely glaze over something, or?

I think I remember them contributing some other stuff as well? But I can't recall what. Regardless, I do think that starting voting was a good thing, it got discussion really rolling while before it was mostly just lingering on mechanics stuff. Which I see as generally towny.

If I remember correctly, in Humble Vale and Namo's Role Overdrive, she was pretty damn on top of trying to keep everyone "on track" and moving forward if the group collectively got stuck on a dead end or on something that didn't really matter. She's been fairly limited with the contents of her posts this D1, and has mostly been sticking to RP. Basically the only thing she's offered so far in terms of "keeping people on track" is "yeah mailman thing is moot" after it had already been decided it's moot. Feeling soft sus right now, but she's since posted more as I was typing this so let me read and revisit this one.

I do agree that Inke was more agressive in Humble Vale, but I don't know that that's scumindicative? I think her aggression in the previous ganes could well have been an attempt to make her townread her more, and if she's town in this game then she'd be less focused on that which means it'd kinda makes sense for her to be less aggressive in that case?