[INNOCENTS WIN] Grand Opening Fanfic Mafia - Game Thread

[M&F]

Mia stared at the Sobble, puzzled. Did that thing taste any good? Eh, it's probably like 98% water.

Laboring to ignore that strange sight, she started to notice other characters who seemed to be staring at her, expectantly. Nothing that she wasn't used to, but maybe something she'd learned to relish. She started experimenting with what reactions she'd get out of returning the stares and maybe gently making to lunge forward.

[[OOC: right, right... considering that "voted for Dave last night" makes for almost 50% of the playerbase, I wouldn't be too quick to count it as a factor -- if it's all we can wring out for the day, we might as well chase it wherever it leads, but don't be surprised if it's a total red herring. anyways, for further analysis, I should perhaps start the work on trying to keep track of who even is who-]]

 

[Namohysip]

Hecto listened to the words on the wind quietly, looking to Starr. She was right in that he was a bit vocal and hesitant, but it was in his nature to be indecisive. How could he help not being able to make a decision when so few pieces of data were present? But that was the nature of this predicament. It wasn't as if the mafia would simply out themselves if they were outnumbered, after all.

But if they kept not making votes, that number would rapidly dwindle. Mentally, he agreed with Dave -- they probably had to jail someone tonight. And the thought, with so little to go by...

Hecto wanted to press through his nature of indecisiveness, but even when he said, "I agree that we need to vote... for... someone suspicious," he only realized the uselessness of his statement afterward: He didn't know who was suspicious. Would it be Psyduck, who wanted to get him out for seemingly no reason but suspicion of his world's temperament? No, perhaps not, because at the time, anybody could have been a target. What of Mel, the most aggressive and first to cast a vote? They were both quite eager to take someone out with little evidence. But perhaps that was the point of trying to find the mafia.

And then there was the ultimate variable: recruitment. The mafia would take someone soon. And that would make all assumptions about everyone's innocence invalid.

Hecto hoped that his thoughts somehow projected into the others' minds, because his mouth wasn't working for most of it. Eventually, he said, "Mel... you were the first to attempt to vote anybody off. Can you elaborate on your reasoning again?" If only to start a conversation.

 

[NonAnalogue]

"Sure thing," Mel said.

-- Our Thoughts on the Matter --

"It's like this. The problem here is that, every night, someone else is gonna get disappeared, right? So every night we wait, we're gonna put ourselves at more and more of a disadvantage. So I wanted to get the drop on these Mafia goons as soon as possible to even the odds."

"To be fair, though," said Repeat, "that approach does come with the risks of jailing an innocent and putting us in an even worse spot."

Mel nodded. "Yeah, that's true. But the way I figured it, if we could scope out who was acting suspiciously, then we stood pretty good odds." She rubbed the back of her head, looking sheepish. "Sorry about that, Dave."

 

[The Walrein]

So even Infinite's supposed reality-manipulation powers weren't enough to save him. There was something profound, Psyduck supposed, about only truly being able to realize someone's innocence after they were removed from society's cruel gaze, but she had the feeling this disappearance was not intended as a philosophical statement. There was, when you stopped to think about it, one here who was more suspect of this crime than anyone else...

Psyduck waddled over to Fish and gave them a pointed glare. "You may have hoodwinked everyone else, but don't think your 'harmless cute little inexplicably-non-sapient animal' act is fooling me," she said to the sobble. "I've got an eye on you."

Moving to OOC:

Okay, so I'm still sort of going back and forth on this, but on the balance I still favor the idea that the most productive thing we can do in the absence of any other evidence would be to jail whoever is most likely to have been recruited. I'm honestly not sure how this suggestion is more suspicious than saying, "let's just jail anyone just so we're doing something". Maybe it was premature to vote for Namohysip before any discussion on who the most likely candidate would be occurred, but then again, there is that idea of putting pressure on people. I still believe Namohysip would be the most likely candidate to have been recruited, but if anyone has any other ideas who that might've been, please speak up.

(Also @Negrek I don't think we ever got clarification on whether if we jailed the potential recruit before they were actually inducted into the Mafia their alignment would be revealed as Town or Mafia.)

That said, I have the sneaking suspicion that we're going to have more concrete evidence to base our decision on after today's discussion. Contra Chibi Pika I don't think Namohysip has done much to elicit suspicion of already being in the Mafia. The only things I can see that might hint in that direction are their mild defensiveness after Chibi Pika first said everyone should should get around to doing some actual strategy on day one, and their "I'm not voting for Dave but I totally might, you guys!" bit, which would only be suspicious if Dragonfree was revealed to be Mafia. In general, I'm not sure how productive trying to analyze how 'genuine' people seem to be is really going to be, given that we're all (well, to greater or lesser extents) roleplaying characters here.

I do agree with Chibi Pika and Dragonfree somewhat that we should be a bit suspicious of everyone who hasn't posted much until now, or haven't posted much of any game analysis, at least (Umbramatic, Nebula Dreams, Virgil134, and Sike Saner in my mind) - if nothing else, for the fact that it'd be really embarrassing to lose to a Mafia that basically just sat back and did nothing while we jailed each other into oblivion. But I don't think that anyone needs to feel pressured to post more pure RP stuff just for the purpose of posting.

Moving on to last night's target, I guess M&F has a point in that 5/12ths of us voted for Dave last night, so maybe we shouldn't try to read too much into the fact that Delirious Absol was one of them. Nevertheless, let's see where that road takes us. If we assume it was done to try to incriminate Dragonfree, wouldn't it make more sense to go after NonAnalogue, since they were the first person to vote for them? But if Dragonfree was the one ordering the hit, why choose one someone who already looked suspicious? Fear of "splitting the vote" between them and Umbramatic maybe?

Maybe it might be more productive to look at who wasn't eliminated last night. The Mafia could've cast a lot of suspicion on me by taking out M&F or Namohysip, or on one of them by taking out me. All of us are kind of unique in that we were only accused by one person or were the only person to accuse one other of us. It's possible that this was avoided due to either M&F or Namohysip being Mafia and not wanting to direct attention to that cluster.

I guess DeliriousAbsol might've been eliminated because the Mafia thought that Negrek might've given them a powerful role to fit their background, but I think that feels a little too 'obvious', so I assume the Mafia probably would have as well. Or maybe not! There could be some random other reason they were eliminated we're all totally unaware of. The only conclusion I can come up with right now is that M&F, Namohysip, and Dragonfree all look a little more suspicious right now than they did last night, and I'd be a little hesitant to vote to jail Umbramatic at this point.

That said I do have to ask Chibi Pika why, if they thought that Delirious Absol was suspicious yesterday, they chose to vote the same way as them. I guess it wouldn't be suspicious if Dragonfree actually is Mafia, but since that's far from certain I think it warrants explanation.

Anyhoo, until I hear some responses from people, my current vote is going to be to jail Fish, the last member of us seen with the vanished party.

 

[Negrek]

If you jail the Mafia recruit before they're converted, they'll flip Innocent.

 

[Virgil134]

As Cabot waited for Loki to respond, he noticed Mia staring at him and making gentle, yet lurching motions towards him. The Cranidos tilted his head and put a claw to his mouth as he wondered why she moving so strangely. Why, if he didn't know any better, it almost looked as if she was trying to make it seem she was about to lunge towards him!

"Eh… Mia, if you wanna talk, you don't have to wait for Loki," Cabot said as he rubbed the back of his head. "I mean I'm sure you must have a lot to talk about. Dave said he thought you died when people started disappearing, so does that mean the Mafia took you here?"

((Alright, so time for some OOC idle musing. Should start by saying that these are my thoughts and not Cabot’s, so we’ll see how much this actually affects what I vote at the end of the day. It at least should be some interesting food for thought for all of you.

Anyway, to start off, unlike Walrein I think there are 2 Mafia members right now. While in a typical Mafia game there’d be 3 members given the amount of players we have in total, the recruitment changes that a bit. Having a potential of 4 Mafia members when you have likely 10 or less total would make it way too hard for the Innocents to win, so I’m sure that Negrek balanced it accordingly. Especially since the recruitment on Night 2 would ensure that even if both Mafia members are caught on the first 2 days, you’d still have a Mafia member left to continue for a third day. In fact, this would still make it harder for the Innocents compared to a classic game of Mafia, since you can’t look at the first 2 days to figure out who the third Mafia member is.

With that in mind, the two people I find the most suspicious at the moment are Umbra and qva. The first reason I have for this is that they’ve both been the most quiet out of everyone, and in an RP heavy Mafia game not saying much is an easy way to stay under the radar. Especially this early in the game when there’s a lot of players left and all of their characters stand out in their own unique way.

The second reason is that they both voted to imprison Dave. Since I’m convinced that Dragonfree is innocent, I think any Mafia member would rather see her character getting jailed than no one. It’s also why I don’t suspect M&F despite her being just as quiet, since like Dragonfree explained, defending Dave as a tiebreaker would be a pretty bold and risky move for a Mafia member.

Whether Umbra and qva are really the two Mafia members remains to be seen, but I’d be surprised if at least not one of them turned out to be part of the Mafia. I’m gonna decide my vote on what Cabot experiences during RPing, so we’ll see if my suspicions change over the next day. Though given that Lachlan hasn’t responded to him at all and Loki gave a short answer that dodged part of Cabot’s question, it doesn’t seem like they will.))

 

[Virgil134]

((Though I should probably note that I've been really enjoying the RPing so far, so I'm more than a little biased in favor of people who've been RPing a lot, which happens to be every player but Umbra, qva, and M&F. I'd rather not see a more active RPer go by the end of the day, simply because it's just been too much fun.))

 

[Chibi Pika]

((I’m on mobile right now so I’ll keep this short and make a longer post later.

I wanna clarify that when I say “genuine” I’m mostly referring to ooc things, as I’m trying not to let in-character stuff influence how much I trust someone (the last thing I want is for someone to worry that their in-character stuff makes them look suspicious, as that’s no fun). The reason I thought qva seemed genuine was because of the surprised/impressed reaction to no nightkill on N0–it seemed weird for a mafia to come out of the gate pretending not to know the rules for this particular game. But if this is stupid/naive feel free to let me know, haha.

Other than that, MF is the player I trust most right now, for what it’s worth.))

 

[Virgil134]

((Nah it's definitely not stupid, but I personally don't think qva's post about being surprised/impressed to no nightkill on N0 means anything. It's something that could easily be faked and pretending to not know that well how the game works does seem like a good strategy for a Mafia member trying to stay under the radar. If anything, it seemed more suspicious to me considering Negrek said multiple times in bold that nobody would get eliminated. It's why I personally don't look at OOC stuff too much, since that's where lying is the easiest. At least when writing in character you'd have to write about your character lying, which does give you some restrictions.))

 

[M&F]

Mia raised an eyebrow at the Cranidos that seemed to be limply questioning her. "I don't want to, but fine. Mia Kerrigan. My genes are half human, half Scyther. Because of that, I have big bad scythes on my arms, and I'm stronger and faster than anyone." She raised the blades on her forearms with a grin. "So, if there's one thing we can figure out about this 'mafia', is that, if they attack anyone I care about, I'll kill them painfully. So it'd be pretty dumb if they did it."

She glanced knowingly in Dave's direction, and then her mind tracked to the other question. "But no, I don't really know what he's talking about when he says I disappeared or whatever it was. I think he's from a different universe, which sounds really stupid until you end up with empirical evidence of it. Maybe he's from a bad doomed timeline or something."

[[OOC: right, so, I was looking over the posts from last Day, and ran into something that might be elucidating:

Armed with this knowledge, the identities of the mafia members becomes readily apparent:

1. Infinite. He's obviously a Digimon. Just look at him. The sobble he carries around is clearly nothing but a flimsy attempt to pretend allegiance to the Pokemon franchise.

2. Mel. What kind of trainer only raises one Pokemon for 18 years? A Digimon tamer, that's who! Her 'ditto' is obviously just one of those baby-stage Digimon that looks like a pile of slime. I dunno which, there's a lot of them.

3. Mia. A "Pokemorph"? Suuuuuure. Everyone knows that the Pokemorph genre has been dead for years. Digimon-human fusions, on the other hand...

So in summary, GG Digimafia. GG.

this was a joke, obviously. but since I've subsequently put the pressure on Walrein, the mafia might have figured that he'd become easy lynch bait if someone thought to use this post against him. at least, I suspect that it's a better bag to invest in than Dave, anyway, given that he's already clear in the eyes of quite a few players -- and if he's mafia himself, which, however inconvenient for me, is still very much a possibility, he'd want to push the spotlight on someone else.

if I'm onto something, this tells us........ not much, actually, but it does clear Walrein.

anyways -- I'm not RPing a whole lot because I'm playing a naturally taciturn character (albeit one whose conversations have spawned an entire miniseries) who, one might remember, I don't own; I'd recommend keeping that sort of factor in mind when evaluating a given player's RP-to-OOC ratio, yes?

lastly, when we're dealing with low-activity players, it usually pays to think about whether they tend to be quiet players, or if they just lie low when they play as mafia. from past experience, I can confirm the latter of qva, but can't disprove the former -- let's just say qva has ended up being scum in so many games in a row, it makes an assessment of townie behavior harder, ahahahah. not that that makes a scum alignment in this particular game any less or more likely, of course. still, of course, qva is the relatively rare exception of player that I have actually been in at least one game with prior to this; umbramatic isn't, which gives me not much to analyze behavior with. anyways, lynching one of these two sounds good to me, but making the final decision is a bit trickier, ahah]]

 

[Namohysip]

((Just as an aside, I can't get over how much I like NonAnalogue's Phoenix Wright formatting.))

Hecto looked to Psyduck, and then at the words on the wind above him. Thoughts and subconscious ideas seemed to be holding a powerful sway so far, and Hecto wondered if that would be something he should concern himself with. "I'd like to remind you," he said to Psyduck and the voice above him, "that I was also in favor of trying to vote someone out at first... but then I was convinced that, due to additional variables in play such as recruitment, it would be less advantageous than my calculations had initially suggested. It... implanted doubt in my ability to vote. Perhaps that hesitance and the sheer awareness of the lack of information on the first day... led me to being so unsure."

Hecto then looked to Dave, then at Mia. It would all be an elaborate ruse to look innocent, but that would be disingenuous, as it was perhaps more likely they were innocent and behaving consistently. What they needed to find was an unexplained inconsistency -- and it was simply too early to find one. "I would suggest we look at someone who has been behaving differently from day to day, but since we have only been through one day so far... I'm afraid that advice is useless."

((As an aside, @Negrek is it okay if you amend the first post of the players with the characters that they're playing? So for example for me, it would be "Namohysip - Hecto" or something. Since most of the time, I'm gonna be referring to folks by their characters... and I'm still having a bit of trouble putting usernames to characters. We have three things off the top of my head that are three characters long and start with M -- Mel, Mia, M&F -- and I'm cross-eyed just keeping track on my own poor self.))

"But that does give me some further information, though it's not exactly foolproof, nor is it immune to the power of coincidences. I do not like a lack of information. If we want to get the assailants exposed and eliminated, we need to know more about how others behave and think. Therefore... to better our odds in a zero-information environment... If an assailant, as suggested, may be laying low and quiet to fly under the radar... I would suggest we further interrogate those who speak little, and perhaps eliminate the greatest unknown, if nobody with great suspicion arises. Then, we will have a greater average pool of information to draw from in the future."

 

[Negrek]

Sure. First post updated with character names as well as players.

 

[Chibi Pika]

Starr glances between Hecto and Cabot, a bit skeptical. “See. Maybe I’m just paranoid, but my thinking was that the mafia would be talking nonstop to make it look like they were trying to help, rather than just shutting up and praying we don’t notice them.” But then she leans back in her chair, gesturing to the two. “That said... you’ve both got a point, yeah. Hearing more from the quiet ones will help. At the very least, we’ll be less likely to make bullshit assumptions.”

That said I do have to ask Chibi Pika why, if they thought that Delirious Absol was suspicious yesterday, they chose to vote the same way as them. I guess it wouldn't be suspicious if Dragonfree actually is Mafia, but since that's far from certain I think it warrants explanation.

((OOC: Right, I understand that probably looks pretty stupid. And honestly, it kind of is. What happened there is I initially suspected Infinite for jumping on the Dave bandwagon without giving a reason, even a “doing something is better than nothing” reason. Then, as everyone else said their bit, I started buying more into the “doing something is better than nothing” thing myself, and worried that voting no one would be setting ourselves up for having one less player AND no additional info come Day 2. Seeing as having no info was such a pain, I went with the option that would hopefully give us more. Then M&F's post finally convinced me that it was better not to jail Dave, and at that point it seemed like Dave was probably safe anyway.))

 

[kyeugh]

((skimming this thread real quick. i guess there is suspicion on me at the moment for not participating a lot? understandable i guess. i still haven't read the thread closely so i don't have anything substantial to suggest but i will say that the main reason i've been quiet is that i've just been procrastinating reading all this stuff because there is just, like, so much text, and it is unusually difficult to extract hard meaning out of it because it's buried beneath a level or two of detachment from the actual players making the decisions. basically it is just really hard for me to keep up here, lol. i need to sit down and just burn my way through the thread at some point but i can't do that atm, or probably even tomorrow.

jail me if you want, i guess— i'm town and not participating that much atm so it's probably not a huge loss anyway— but if you don't have any better leads than to snap up the inactives then you're probably in some amount of trouble. haven't read the rest of the thread, of course, but my feelings based on what i've read are mostly that, generally, mafiosi can't really afford to be quiet, and as i understand it lynching inactives just because they're inactive is not really that great of an idea. what will you glean when i roll innocent? in what way is the risk of taking out inactive players worth the perceived reward in terms of information received as a result of their flip, scum or not? again, haven't read the rest of the thread, don't know what the climate is like generally speaking. but i do think trying to push against inactives that you don't necessarily expect to even speak back is a very easy and beneficial move for scum to make.

will read the rest of the thread asap. sorry if these thoughts are cluttered. just getting it out there so you don't lynch me while i'm busy tomorrow lol.))

 

[kyeugh]

((uh, can't edit but after reading a bit more i'd like to add: i don't think pushing on inactives AT ALL is weird, i think it's reasonable to want people to talk if you're short on information and they've been under the radar. but i DO think that threatening a lynch over it isn't really obviously advantageous and is a convenient move for scum to make.))

 

[Negrek]

There are 18 hours remaining in Day 2.

Currently, the only vote is for Fish. If Fish is jailed at the end of Day 2, an additional player will be eliminated at random.

 

[Namohysip]

Hecto's hexagon eyes dimmed significantly, which appeared to be his species' means of closing their eyes, based on how he had lowered his head at the same time. "It isn't as if getting rid of someone unknown and neutral is the most ideal situation," he said. "It is merely the only option we would have if nothing else is known. Perhaps I am biased, but I would rather rid myself of someone completely unknown than someone who may be actually trying to help." He looked to Starr. "You seem to be very savvy about how these sorts of antics work, and have been actively trying to strategize against the assailants. I wish I could do the same with such confidence, but the sheer number of unknown variables is... staggering."

Distortions in the dimensional realm, familiar to the ones that had happened the day before, made Hecto's tail lower. "We are rapidly running out of time. I would rather we not get rid of someone completely at random... So I have a final few questions to ask. I hope there are not any followups, considering our dwindling time."

He turned to Cabot. "I'm sensing suspicion from you regarding Loki and Lachlan due to their relative silence. And while I am hesitant to blame Loki due to their hesitance--as I am the same way--I agree that Lachlan has been... quiet, and hasn't provided much beyond protecting themselves. Would you be voting for one of them?"

Hecto then looked to Lachlan herself. "...I apologize for this, but time is short" he said. "Tentatively... I must place my vote for Lachlan, if only due to my previous worries about unknowns. Feel free to convince me otherwise: Seeing as you would not want to vote for yourself... who would you vote for instead, and why?"

 

[NebulaDreams]

Ess waved away the rainbow wheel above his head. He had laid quiet for too long, and in the worst of situations as well. For a moment, it seemed like he was out of control of his own body, since he couldn't move for a good chunk of that day so far, and didn't have any idea why. Maybe he had been smoking something too intense before he was dropped into this whole mafia mess.

He stared at the lone Sobble, who, as any Sobble who lost their master would've, sobbed in a corner of the room. It was surreal to think Infinite was gone like that, and his stomach felt uneasy at the thought of who would be picked off next. What if he was the next customer on the chopping block? But first, he wanted to clear up some sort of guilty conscience concerning Fish, especially since the Psyduck seemed so suspicious of him.

"Psyduck, dude," he said, glaring at the billed beast, "You're seriously kickin' that Sobble while he's down? Shut up, you poncey fuck."

After Psyduck was done grilling Fish, he went over to kneel down next to the Sobble. "Hey. If you're lookin' for a place to go after this and I'm still around, I'll take you in as a new recruit. You'd have a family of your own there."

Ess sighed and turned to the rest of the group, who all looked tense.

"I know I've been hush-hush all this time, but y'know, it's about time to step in since we're getting close to the end of the day. But yeah, I'd like to zero in on those who haven't blabbed much either." He glanced over to Loki and Lachlan. "I don't wanna just bandwagon Hecto's stuff, but y'know, we don't have that many options left."

 

[NonAnalogue]

Mel crossed her arms. "Call it a gut instinct if you want, but something's not right here."

"Chief?"

"I mean, something's gnawing at me."

Repeat grinned. "Oh, you mean like--"

"Not like that Totodile in Viridian City, thanks, Repeat. My vote this time is for Psyduck.Who treats a grieving Pokemon that way?"

((OOC: I'm starting to get the feeling that the Walrein is using humor as a disarming tactic. On top of that, posting a list of three suspects 'in jest' and then killing the first one on the list would ordinarily be so suspicious as to be an immediate nope, but I suspect it's a double-blind.))

 

[Chibi Pika]

Starr listens to the whispers on the wind, her brow furrowing more and more with each passing second. She tried being nice. She tried going along with their sad attempts to gather more info. But this is taking too long. They only have 12 hours left. Unbelievable. As the group finally starts narrowing in on one member who hadn’t said much until now, something inside her finally snaps, and she stands up so forcefully that it knocks her chair to the ground with a loud clatter.

“Are you guys fucking serious?” She throws both arms outward, palms up. “This is all we have? Two days and the only thing we have to show for it is some vague-ass nonsense about people who haven’t said shit? If that doesn’t paint us as incompetent then I don’t know what does. Maybe Lachlan is guily. I don’t fucking know, it’s all a dice roll at this point. Forgive me if I’m not impressed.”

At this point she pauses, dragging her hands down her face. “And the worst part is that I’m no better than the rest of you cowards. Because I don’t know if anything I say here is gonna get me knifed in the middle of the night, or dragged off to some brainwashing lair, or whatever the hell. Yeah, I said it. I’m scared.”

And then Starr suddenly becomes aware of the fact that, while she was ranting and raving, the girl with the Ditto had been making a case of her own on the other end of the room. Starr whirls around, thrusting a finger in her direction.

“You. You’re the first person who’s made a lick of sense all day.”