Seventh Anniversary Mafia

[Dragonfree]

I like giving grace to newer players, especially when they’re new players on different time zones. But I will die on this hill: we spent almost the ENTIRE DAY PHASE gunning for either Zdr/Hareta or Yellow/Rui. The fact that Aer’s info allegedly proved both of them innocent and in the posts they made (because no, they were not fully absent, they posted here and there) they didn’t even HINT at knowing as such reaaallllyyyyy rubs me the wrong way. I know there seems to be other better leads at this moment but I’m side-eyeing the hell out of it.

[[Just a quick note: aer did in fact make a softclaim post which it sounds like you missed:

... okay. I can corroborate

Rui's claim with my ability. With the particulars of my ability and the power of logic, I strongly believe that

Watt is the Scarlet Woman, and

Hareta is innocent.

I would've preferred to wait some more for Inke's response, but if no one else is claiming, it seems important to give this information now. It just seemed too perfect, everything linked up too well, that someone would pick a claim that I could verify as true and we could narrow down to one immediately. Like, if there was a Spy, this would be the perfect manipulation, but like... it does seem like a really risky gambit for the Mafia to do on the first day. So I'll believe Rui.

As for what my ability is... I could say it, but I think it might be better for us to keep it ambiguous, because it could be one of the abilities where I get information at the beginning of the game and none later, or it could be one of the abilities that I can use every night, and if the evils don't know which one it is, then they could waste a night poisoning/killing me, or by not poisoning/killing me. But maybe I should just say it?? Gah.

See what I mean by overthinking it?

And that's all assuming I haven't been night 0 poisoned. I'm just... not... going to open that can of worms right now though.

@Inkedust VOTE: WATT / WINDSKULL

So Elgyem did explicitly claim info on Hareta's innocence. The post was more ambiguous about what she knew about Rui - I interpreted it at the time as saying she could back up what Rui was saying, not that she had info about Rui herself, although if I'd looked better at what roles existed and the seating order I might have had a chance to properly enumerate what the possible roles were and deduce it was info on Rui as well (my daughter was being especially unruly that evening and I was struggling to even get a post in voting Rui instead of Hareta). At the same time, it wasn't ironclad proof of their innocence, because Elgyem could have been drunk or poisoned, and she was trying to be vague enough about her info to not draw fire. So, while in her situation I definitely would not have popped up at the end and straight-up voted for Rui in this situation, it's not true that she didn't even hint at her info yesterday; she was just ambiguous about it in an effort to hide precisely which inforole she had. I don't think Elgyem is likely to be scum; I do side-eye the Rui vote a little, but for me it's more of a mild sus point from a player who has otherwise felt pretty town.]]

 

[Panoramic_Vacuum]

That said, if Scarlet Woman is in play, then even if Persephone is the Demon, we won’t win yet! But we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.

A few hums and a couple taps later, Rocky bobbed up and down. A nod, perhaps? "Rocky begin to wonder if this is the case. If we have found the Demon thanks to science, why no one else defend them if game will be over at end of day, question?" Two taps.

"Maybe players who know to defend Mimikyu worry it will make them suspect. Minions who know they will inherit Demon after today..."

"Rocky suspect we do have Scarlet Woman in game... Anyone think otherwise, question?" Another double tap.

 

[Chibi Pika]

[[Nope! They win only when there are ZERO townies (in the physical game only living players can ‘nominate’ a player to vote on) or their voting power outweighs the town’s counting ghost votes, which should never happen unless people blunder their ghost votes en masse. Meanwhile if there’s no Demon the game just ends instantly, even if they are survived by their minions. 1 townie 3 evils is an eminently winnable (albeit very hard bc you have to figure out which of the evils is specifically the demon) game state.

Glastrier tapped an ice-clad hoof to the ground a few times, counting. "So, then. We have four confirmed innocents. If you are correct and Madeline is the demon, then even if the enemy has a "Scarlet Woman," so long as our dead preserve their votes, we will very likely find her."

Regarding your explanation for the vote: you’ve phrased it well, but the fact remains that, as scum, to make such a specific claim is still a very bold move. Way too many things would have to line up for me to not get caught in a lie there. There were three explanations: I was Drunk, I was Poisoned, or I was scum.

The argument of me being scum just has so many caveats and is a much more complicated assumption than either of the other two options.

Glastrier tossed its head, icicle-mane clattering. "I disagree. Lying or compromised are both indistinguishable in that situation. There is no 'caught in a lie' when they would appear the same, even when the information was proven false. Had you been evil, and given that false emera, the so-called 'bold' move was the only move."

I am frankly amazed I wasn't killed last night... I was not worthy for this game, I shouldn't have signed up in the first place! But instead I entered and became a deadly liability... My questions at the start and that fake claim directed suspicion at me, which ended up transpiring events that lead to the death of two players...

Glastrier gave the Squirtle a hard stare. "This is false. You served your purpose as well as you could have, and our side has benefited from it greatly. This is the farthest thing from a deadly liability."

Rocky stood straight upright with a startled screech. "You change texture! Rocky has never seen before! Went from soft gaseous composition to hard and solid. Amaze amaze amaze, Rocky did not know a creature existed that could do this without atmospheric changes! Rocky study you after game is over, question?" Two stomps.

Glastrier observed the rock-creature with an apathetic look, though it did not appear to be bothered by the attention. It stomped its hooves twice in response. That may have been the closest thing to a positive reply that it was capable of...

 

[Shiny Phantump]

Actually, looking at this now, are we *sure* there are no duplicate roles in this game? Kinda crazy that we can just out the Demon and end the game. Would there be multiple Demons in play?

[[I’m not sure exactly what some of the stuff after my quote stops means means, but I can answer this: While there shouldn’t be duplicate roles (iirc Inke has confirmed this?) in a game of this size the Storyteller usually exercises their discretion to ensure a Scarlet Woman is in play alongside the Demon so that you can’t just get lucky with the demon earlygame. Inke has indicated that she has not done this, but...]]

"Rocky suspect we do have Scarlet Woman in game... Anyone think otherwise, question?"

“I’m in full agreement! If they didn’t, there’s be a more extreme action they could’ve taken to ensure survival: If the Demon self-eliminates, then even if they don’t have a Scarlet Woman, another minion loses their role to become the Demon in their place. But if the Scarlet Woman is alive then they gets first dibs on inheriting that way anyway, at which point you may as well play it out, not waste one of your kills, and let the town waste one of theirs instead.”

 

[windskull]

"Rocky suspect we do have Scarlet Woman in game... Anyone think otherwise, question?" Another double tap.

"Seems likely to me." Watt closed his eyes and crossed his arms, tilting his head from side to side. If we assume a 3-person scum team, which seems about average for this size game, and we seem like we only have two outsiders, then odds are we have one right. There's only four options, and given how dangerous the other two potential outsider roles are for town, they would have claimed early. Or at least, I hope so." He snorted, shaking his head.

"So, while a Baron could be in the game, the odds seem low with only two outsiders. Which gives us... what, a 2/3 chance of having a Scarlett Woman among us? Pretty decent odds.

"As for the rest of the recent revelations, I think I need some time to get my head in order. I have no intent of voting today though. Best to save that for when it's real necessary."

[[Following along with the thread but I've got some stuff I'm trying to get done today that's keeping me from sitting down and doing more in-depth thoughts. Gonna try and be more active later tonight/tomorrow]]

 

[Shiny Phantump]

[[I have checked with Inke and been told that we lose if the living evils can outvote living town, ghostvotes (on both sides?) being able to change the outcome doesn’t matter and the game will be ended anyway. A little odd to me, but unlikely to matter too much? We still just have to get the demon to win. Even if some of the D1 play is a bit aggressive in that context, we got lucky to find an evil in time to offset that.]]

 

[Shiny Phantump]

[[Primarily, I don’t know how that affects ghostvote strategy since they matter a lot less now that they don’t prevent evil vote majority.]]

 

[Chibi Pika]

“Fun as it would be to immediately do a murder, or at least try, I was still shaking off my beauty sleep earlier. I’m still trying to reason through which of my accusers is more likely to be my chief enemy. I was hoping for some assistance from someone better versed in the game than I, but I’ll take a shot at the alien or the ghost in a few hours regardless.”

The ice horse laughed. It was a hollow, mirthless sound. "Alright, I'll play your game."

[[This is as good an opportunity to get some reads down. I genuinely think that the only way that Morgan and Elgyem's inspections could have lined up the way they did in the order they did is for *both* of them to be on the same scumteam, which would be insane. If *one* of them was lying, even if the liar would have known the other was poisoned, there's no way they could have known what false info was going to be given by the storyteller. (At least, I'm assuming the storyteller just makes it up themselves, presumably in the most bastard-y way possible.)

I admit my read on Morgan is mostly soulreading, but in my defense, Morgan has consistently acted so pro-town and contributed to such a good D1 boardstate that I genuinely think she'd be trashing scum's chances of winning if she were scum. Putting all the scumteam's eggs into the basket of making herself look good??? Why would she do that? It'd be so shortsighted. If I'm wrong, I accept my clown hat forever.

As for Elgyem, I genuinely think that vote-switching to Rui would have been an insane move to make as scum. The vote train had already happened, half the players were asleep, and vote-switching served no purpose to scum. Letting the vote pass and flying under the radar makes way more sense, especially for newbie scum who'd usually be afraid of drawing attention. I'm getting hardcore panicked newbie paranoid their info was wrong vibes.]]

 

[Shiny Phantump]

[[If anyone wants to follow up or wants to make sure I’m not misinterpreting, here’s the exact exchange for transparency:
“[I quote myself from here earlier] I should check that this is true bc the intro post just says evils win if they control more than 50% of the vote with no elaboration. Is that statement true of Ink on the Clocktower?”
“The evil team wins when they control 50% or more of the vote. This is how I've always played this game as after a certain point, it'd be mechanically impossible for town to win.”
“We could control the vote with zero townies alive. Is that allowed?”
“No. Ghost votes do not count.”]]

 

[HelloYellow17]

Had you been evil, and given that false emera, the so-called 'bold' move was the only move."

[[Except it’s not? If I were scum, I would have played it safe and kept the cards close to my chest. I would not have risked getting counter-claimed on day one. At most I’d have hinted at a soft claim.

I refuse to accept “Rui being scum was the most plausible reality” as a justification that holds any more water than Drunk or Poisoning. Just…no. Sorry.

But I’m tired of debating this so I’m dropping it. Let’s agree to disagree and move on.

[[I have checked with Inke and been told that we lose if the living evils can outvote living town, ghostvotes (on both sides?) being able to change the outcome doesn’t matter and the game will be ended anyway.

…okay. Awesome. So all of my previous grievances about numbers actually were and are valid, lol. Glad to confirm this now. 🫠 and good to know the limitations of ghost voting!

@Inkedust do living Outsiders factor into the “living town” number? I know they have a town wincon, but do they count as town when alive?]]

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave sighed, shaking his head. "Okay, so. Our first piece of info is this: on night zero, Elgyem says she was told she had zero evil neighbors. Her neighbors at the time were Rui and Hareta. On night one, Elgyem was told she has one evil neighbor, and now her neighbors are Hareta and Madeline. So, on the face of it, if Elgyem is telling the truth and not poisoned, and given Rui was the Drunk, point one in favor of Madeline being evil.

"Our second piece of info is Morgan's. On night zero, she says she was told one of her neighbors, Watt and Madeline, was the Demon. On night one, she says she was told neither of Rocky and Madeline was the Demon. Since we know Watt wasn't the Demon, if Morgan's night zero info was correct the Demon had to have been Madeline, so she would've had to have been poisoned on night one.

"Fair enough. That's one possible way it played out. But there are several other possibilities here, and I'm not wild about how Morgan's been going around saying Madeline's mechanically confirmed as the Demon after the neither Rocky nor Madeline being the Demon result that she got last night. The other possibilities include:

- Morgan was poisoned on night zero and Elgyem was poisoned on night one. This is obviously also possible and explains the results equally well, and Elgyem had a much stronger info softclaim yesterday than Morgan. Personally I would've bet on scum poisoning Elgyem last night over Morgan. Telling a story about how they definitely noticed Morgan's easily-missed softclaim and definitely went for her instead of the really prominent softclaim is all well and good, but it's hardly incontrovertible proof they must have done that.
- Watt was Morgan's designated false positive, and Elgyem was poisoned on night one. Morgan thinks this is unlikely because then Watt would've been 'double-framed', both the false positive for her and one of Rui's false Drunk Investigator results. But these are completely different mechanics so I don't know that it's obvious the same person wouldn't get picked for both, the way the same person probably wouldn't be picked as a designated false positive for two different roles with a designated false positive. Wouldn't it be pretty likely to be picked at random which people Rui was told about, for one?
- Elgyem was poisoned night one and Morgan is evil and trying to take charge of the game. Obviously it's fair for Morgan not to consider this one, but we should. It'd probably be unnecessarily bold play at this stage to act so certain about mechanical confirmation, and would raise more suspicion if Madeline turns out not to be the demon, so I don't see it as super likely.

"I want to hear from Morgan at least exactly why she's so convinced she wasn't poisoned on night zero. To be clear, purely mechanically, the simplest Occam's razor explanation here is Madeline is evil and Morgan was poisoned last night; fewest moving parts. But I would've expected the mafia to poison Elgyem over Morgan last night, which is why it seems so fucking convoluted to me to decide Morgan getting poisoned is absolutely definitely what happened because they definitely picked up on the softclaim and definitely decided Morgan was more dangerous.

"Or, to put it another way: the result of your replication experiment was a failure to replicate. You tried to replicate getting a Demon read on Madeline and you did not get one. And then you've decided this actually totally proves Madeline is the Demon because you definitely got poisoned so that's why it came out as no Demon. It doesn't fucking prove that."

 

[Shiny Phantump]

I’m not wild about how Morgan's been going around saying Madeline's mechanically confirmed

[[mmm fair yeah I shouldn’t do that]]

 

[Dragonfree]

As for Elgyem, I genuinely think that vote-switching to Rui would have been an insane move to make as scum. The vote train had already happened, half the players were asleep, and vote-switching served no purpose to scum. Letting the vote pass and flying under the radar makes way more sense, especially for newbie scum who'd usually be afraid of drawing attention. I'm getting hardcore panicked newbie paranoid their info was wrong vibes.]]

"Elgyem did come in and actively vote Rui at the end of the day, rather than just letting the vote pass and flying under the radar. That's the thing that's kinda weird."

 

[Sinderella]

Nope! They win only when there are ZERO townies (in the physical game only living players can ‘nominate’ a player to vote on) or their voting power outweighs the town’s counting ghost votes, which should never happen unless people blunder their ghost votes en masse.

[right this is what I meant. But still, doesn’t really change my unease.

Just a quick note: aer did in fact make a softclaim post which it sounds like you missed:

Okay, I did, in fact, miss that, so thank you! But then the sus is still there for me because they voted for Rui???

There are clearly bigger fish to fry right now but that settles me a little, for now.

Still indisposed so no effort posting until later, just wanted to give thanks for the clarification.

bye for now chat 🫡]

 

[HelloYellow17]

"Beneficial effects were everything! Rui so, so important! Phase change Spectrier could only use ability to confirm your innocence if you eliminated. Hard choice to eliminate player we think is Good, but a necessary choice. Now we know Rui was Good! happy happy happy."

[[Thank you for clarifying that, I’m missing a million details today. That helps me understand a bit better.

Rui sacrifice good, worthy. Rui help, Rocky glad."

I’m so sorry, I wish I had it in me to do RP right now. But this is so sweet 😭 ILY Rocky]]

 

[Shiny Phantump]

"I want to hear from Morgan at least exactly why she's so convinced she wasn't poisoned on night zero. To be clear, purely mechanically, the simplest Occam's razor explanation here is Madeline is evil and Morgan was poisoned last night; fewest moving parts. But I would've expected the mafia to poison Elgyem over Morgan last night, which is why it seems so fucking convoluted to me to decide Morgan getting poisoned is absolutely definitely what happened because they definitely picked up on the softclaim and definitely decided Morgan was more dangerous.

“Quite the other way around: I think I was poisoned because Elegym was meant to die. In other words, I expect we were both targets, and that this is the explanation for there being no kill tonight. I was far less likely to have been protected, so they would’ve otherwise had to get unlucky and just hit a soldier.”

 

[Shiny Phantump]

[[It is possible that I was poisoned N0, aer/Elegym N1, and I was protected/evil stumbled into an unrelated killblock but given the obscurity of my claim I don’t think I’d be the top protection candidate and targeting a clear power role would be the least random explanation for the no kill. It’s also possible Watt registered as contradictory false evils twice: BotC logic I think dictates a storyteller would be unlikely to choose this (storyteller would usually choose whatever fake results they want, even so far as giving true info of town’s getting rolled but usually just to not contradict the narrative) but mmm I suppose it would hardly shock me if Inke’s randomizing all her storyteller choices.]]

 

[Chibi Pika]

"Elgyem did come in and actively vote Rui at the end of the day, rather than just letting the vote pass and flying under the radar. That's the thing that's kinda weird."

Glastrier let out a misty huff. “Indeed. I am saying she would have had every reason to fly under the radar if she were evil. Flailing at the last second does not serve the evil ones’ interests in any way.”

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave squinted at Morgan... and then sighed. "Okay, I can see it. I still think it's a whole lot more uncertain than you made it out to be, but fine. We don't have a better lead than Madeline at the moment, it's simplest mechanically, and if Rocky can't vote either without me, fine, I'll throw my hat in."

[[@Inkedust Vote: Madeline]]

 

[Dragonfree]

Glastrier let out a misty huff. “Indeed. I am saying she would have had every reason to fly under the radar if she were evil. Flailing at the last second does not serve the evil ones’ interests in any way.”

[[Right, right, I misread what you said. Sorry!]]