[INNOCENTS WIN] Grand Opening Fanfic Mafia - Game Thread

[Namohysip]

((Sorry all. I have read nothing. Work had me swamped today. I’m catching up now, but that’s the reason for my relative silence!))

 

[Chibi Pika]

((no worries, man. you're in for a treat, lol))

 

[M&F]

Mia's puzzled expression only deepened the more things were said, but at least, she felt content that the Dave wasn't the source of the nonsense, just the hapless vessel through which it flowed unregulated.

[[OOC: Retracting my vote on Dave, although it should be crystal that I'm not considering that an honest roleclaim or, in either case, proof of innocence just yet; it does address the cause for a lynch today, though, so we have muddy waters to wade through. what else do we do in mafia, eh? in particular, I'm skeptical about seeing a probability-based role other than a bodyguard on anything from the current half decade, but since weird game design just happens sometimes, I'm not counting that as an exceedingly strong point-against.

Chibi Pika, I'd highly appreciate it if you could be clearer about your inforole; I mean, considering the rhinectomy we just went through, what are the odds you'll live another night, and what've you got to lose? of course, leave out anything that the mob could use to screw with you non-lethally, but otherwise, I'm just saying, omae wa mou shindeiru. that, and a more specific claim might be helpful in the direction of convincing me that you're not just making all of that up, which is a possibility I'm also keeping in mind.

I also thiiiiink there was some statement to the effect that we'd be facing a vanilla mob in this game, but if I botched my reading of that memo, it does seem plausible to me that we might be dealing with a ninja here -- it'd be the counterbalance to these multiple strong inforoles we apparently have, anyway

and qva:

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.

qva: I should clarify, I am not lynching you for voting Dave -- in fact, I'm quirking eyes quite a bit at anyone who's pursuing this angle very intently -- like, guys, that's 5 entire people, and when exactly did we get the memo saying Dave is clear anyway?

just out of curiosity, do you read my posts?]]

 

[Namohysip]

Hecto listened to the words fly past him, on the wind, and from the actual bodies present. His hexagon eyes flashed rapidly, glowing brighter and brighter, until, suddenly, they abruptly flickered and shorted out like a broken light bulb. He grunted, rubbing his forehead with a paw. "There are many variables at play here... much more than I had anticipated... and now even the assailants may have special powers?"

((To my knowledge, we only know that the person who gets converted to mafia becomes "a "mafia goon" with generic mafia kill powers " according to the info post. Didn't say anything about the mafia being generic.))

"...Info post?"

((We, uh, we were all briefed on the happenings going on here. Author privileges. But I more or less know as much as you do.))

Hecto hummed, nodding. "I see... well..." He looked to the others. "If I understand it correctly, Dave has the ability to redirect anything that happens from one player to another, and Mel can switch two players' fates outright... but..." He furrowed his brow again, almost creasing his muzzle from the thought. He sighed. "Does anybody else have any light that they may shed regarding this? Strange effects they may have felt, odd happenings...?"

 

[kyeugh]

[[and qva:
...
just out of curiosity, do you read my posts?]]

((i mean, yes. i think you're a smarter than heavy-handedly clearing the guy you defended for no solid reason day one, and i was giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming your vote on me made any amount of sense. but if you're insisting it didn't i guess i can go back over why that looks scummy to me. there are two reasons people cited for their votes on me:

1. i was quiet. some people thought this might be alignment-indicative, others thought it would just be good to lynch someone quiet because it's low impact. you've already said you don't necessarily agree with the former point, and the latter point doesn't make sense because low-impact deaths that don't provide a lot of information are not that useful for scumhunting. i said this several times. it didn't have any effect on your vote until an actual confirmed mafia dropped out of the sky.
2. i voted for dave. by your own word this doesn't matter.

so yeah, if you voted on me anyway, i guess really what you're saying is that you wanted me dead not because you found my quietness suspicious, not because you thought it would be useful for scumhunting, and not because you found my vote on dave suspicious either. according to what you've said, you did it just because it was a wagon. i don't really think that's remotely a better look than voting on me for even a bad reason.

pretty much everything else you've done is null at best. as i said, not voting for you yet, but it's not really a great look to me! your quoted messages there don't really change that.))

 

[kyeugh]

"Hmmm..." Lachlan shoves his hands in his pockets. "Well, if we have someone with the ability to watch for activity at night, it makes sense that the mafia might be able to adapt and move stealthily too. I'm willing to buy that concept. It does make me wonder whether anyone else has any kind of investigatory power, though."

He shrugs. "Anyway, be that as it may be, I doubt they can do it again, at least. So while it keeps Dave in the green for now, at least tentatively, it doesn't really tell us much about the mafia... I really wonder who was recruited. I just wish we had more information to go on."

 

[Chibi Pika]

Starr’s eyes narrow at Mia. Or rather, at the words from above Mia. “Yeah, see, I already knew I was putting myself on their hit list by saying all this. Honesty pretty damn surprised I even made it through the night after everything I said yesterday. As far as I’m concerned, the mafia made a huge mistake in letting me live, and I’m ready to punish them for it.”

“That said... not really digging that tone. We’ve got a crowd of swappers and redirecters and who-the-hell-knows what else (is there a healer? There could be a healer. They’re better off keeping quiet, though.) I’m feeling a lot safer now than I was last night. Assuming we get rid of our silent killer before nightfall, I don’t think I’ll have too much trouble hunting down the recruit--they’re bound to fuck up soon enough.”

“In any case, I don’t feel like I have anything to prove right now. You, on the other hand, have been pushing wagons to nowhere and hopping on every bus that comes by, so forgive me if I’m not too threatened by your skepticism.”

At this point, Starr stops and gestures to the words that had been exchanged between the voices over Lachlan and Mia ((pretend this is me quoting, I’m on mobile okay.))

“Right. So here’s the thing. You said you weren’t pushing the Lachlan wagon because he voted for Dave. Said that a couple times. So then tell me why, every time I hear those words, I can’t help feeling like they’re trying to make me think the opposite.” She glances around at the others. “Tell me it’s not just me, right? I can’t be the only one getting a weird-ass contrary vibe from every word floating around Mia. And that’s without even getting into the constant bussing.”

((I’ll quote specific examples later, but pretty much every single word in Mia’s last post has me on high alert. With the exception of if being weird that Dave has a random-chance protection role, because that’s pretty weird yeah.))

 

[M&F]

Mia only returned a look of frustration at Starr. "Hmm. Another one who talks to invisible people from the sky. This is so dumb."

[[OOC: gee, Mia, one wonders!

qva:

like, being inactive is definitely not alignment indicative, which is also what makes it a tempting (if incorrect) move for scum in the first place, but lynching inactives is really not just a convenient mislynch. it's, at best, a way to catch mafiosi who otherwise won't talk enough to offer an opening, and at worst, a relatively low-impact mislynch.

don't make me order a book report due Friday, buster brown

Chibi Pika: oh, come on, play ball a little. skepticism should be anyone's approach to new information in mafia. that includes those roleclaims you seem to think are keeping you safe right now, by the way -- if just one of them is lying, well, we'll get to find out just how they got past this ostensible protective network to kill a fully claimed inforole with a successful scum lynch under his belt. and let me tell you, reacting to my questions with defensiveness and vague, poorly-founded accusations isn't how you lessen the skepticism. and I hopefully don't just mean mine!

anyway, now that we're through with this yawnfest, let's get to the actually interesting thing I wanted to talk about now that time favours it a little more: the convert. at this point, we have two particularly good sources for how to figure that one out. the one, I'll be holding close to my chest for now; it's not something worth bringing until a little later on -- say, until everyone's done at least one significant post? or, if not that, then at least when we know who isn't going to. but there remains the other one: the fellow we know for a fact is mafia. in fact, he was eager to bring up the topic at a far less appropriate time, so why not put his legacy to good use?

(...) "Not all of this Mafia will be composed of random persons, plucked by chance from the cosmos. No, at least one of them, I'll bet, will have been selected by the mafia based on their suitability for their organization. And let's ask ourselves, who would they pick? Someone who fits in well with others, surely. Someone powerful, yet also seeming kind and wise. And how would this person behave? Not wishing to draw suspicion, they'd talk much but say little, avoiding advocating for any concrete plan. Now, I won't pretend my certainty is as 100% as implied by his name, but I'm voting for jailing Hecto. No one else here Fitz those criteria as well as he does."

OOC Reasoning: Okay, so Mafia games usually have 1/3rd of the players be Mafia, I believe. I imagine one of the four will be the recruited on the first night, so there are three currently. So the odds of Namo being Mafia are 0.25 + (0.75*odds Mafia successfully recruits them on night one). I'd say there's at least a 1/3 chance the Mafia would recruit Namohysip. They post often, are well liked, and judging from Hands of Creation, are a master of complicates schemes and secrets. I'd put the odds at 45% they'd be recruited myself. Take into account a 1/12 chance the recruitment got blocked, and that's a roughly 56% chance they are or will soon become Mafia.

of course, we're not to expect that he was just laying out the actual full thought process behind the mob's recruitment tactic right before our towno eyes -- rather, his hope was probably to lynch an useful innocent for being an useful innocent, which, I mean, does it get better than that? however, where the conclusion might not be useful to us, the argumentation has a decent chance of being; what better reasoning to deduce the mafia convert than the one that mafia had actually used? so we may be on the lookout for someone that, at the start of the game, our dead Psyduck and whoever his teammate is figured would be someone active, popular, and uhm, who writes complicated fanfics, apparently? if we're keeping that last one in consideration, you folks will have to help me out, so far the only one of y'all I've had the chance to read from who fits that critterion is perhaps our fine GM.

although hey, why keep that possibility off the table, anyway? after all, if you could get the GM on your side, why wouldn't you? explaing yourself, Negrek, ya dog!]]

 

[kyeugh]

qva:
...
don't make me order a book report due Friday, buster brown

((i've addressed this specifically in excruciating detail probably three or four times now. you've still said nothing of it except for doubling down. once again, this does not make me feel better.))

 

[Chibi Pika]

((Aaand, that’s what I was waiting for. I never got to go toe-to-toe with Psyduck, so this’ll be fun. *cracks knuckles* Let’s do this!))

List of reasons why Mia is scum:

• Throwing a weak accusation at Psyduck day 1 (I know I used this as a point of confidence earlier, but on reread, it was really flimsy and didn’t go anywhere, and then Psyduck was confirmed mafia, which puts it in a whole new light.)
• Subtly and repeatedly backing up Psyduck’s various attempts to manipulate our idea of what the Mafia “might do” while banking on the previous shade-casting to make it seem like the two weren’t working together.
• I didn’t raise any eyebrows at the Lachlan wagon starting. I was curious to see where it went too. But I’m not convinced it went anywhere good. Lachlan gave perfectly fair counters to each of the reasons, and his motivation/narrative remained consistent throughout. Mia, on the other hand, constantly revised the reasons why it was a good train to follow, and doubled down even harder with each time Lachlan pointed out why it wouldn’t provide any useful info, almost like his reasoning didn’t matter, and had no chance of ever changing her mind.
• Throwing out a token vote for Psyduck at the last second after she was already doomed seems too ridiculously scummy to be real. But at the same time, I can’t fathom any genuine motivation for doing that.
• Defending Dave sure was a hell of a gambit, wasn’t it. But think about it like this: Dave was already on thin ice, and keeping an easy lynch for later is more useful than getting rid of him right off the bat and then having to fight an uphill battle with the quiet characters. Either that or nightkilling him and wasting people’s time trying to get them to read into it.
• Lamenting the subsequent easy lynch on Dave because it means we’ll have a harder time finding the recruit. Come on. Seeing how people react to being given Dave on a silver platter will let us find the recruit later. (Granted, I’m kinda botching that right now by going for the obvious mafia in front of us and letting the recruit live another day, but whatever. Since we know the recruit is only a mafia goon, I’m treating original mafia as potentially more dangerous.)
• Jumping on the easy Dave lynch. Come. On. I was ridiculously overdramatic for a reason. Also strikes me as something done with the confidence of someone who already knew their murder had gone undetected.
• Token weak suspicion toward me after my narrative had already been cross-referenced with information that I couldn’t have had before claiming. At least invent an inconsistency in my narrative across the past few days or something.
• As usual, none of these are damning on their own. It’s the overall picture they paint, and it’s blatantly anti-innocent.

“I’d been suspicious ever since I called out Psyduck, but this honestly cinches it for me. Voting Mia.”

 

[kyeugh]

"Hmmmm!" Lachlan pulls a bubble pipe out of his mouth and taps his chin thoughtfully. He's suddenly and wearing a trench coat. "In general, I don't think casting doubt on basically all information we accrue is a very good position, and I've already said, I don't think her vote on me made basically any sense given what she's said... In backpedaling on her reasons for voting me in order not to look scummy, she's left herself without literally any reason that makes sense in a way that benefits town. Suffice to say I was already suspicious of Mia for those reasons, but you've really put a ribbon on it for me, I think. One thing I'd like to add:

List of reasons why Mia is scum:
...

• Defending Dave sure was a hell of a gambit, wasn’t it. But think about it like this: Dave was already on thin ice, and keeping an easy lynch for later is more useful than getting rid of him right off the bat and then having to fight an uphill battle with the quiet characters. Either that or nightkilling him and wasting people’s time trying to get them to read into it.

I agree with you here. I hadn't thought of this before, but something worth noting though is that it benefits mafia to have as many divisive townies alive as possible. That is to say, moving to keep Dave alive despite the relatively large train on him, and then repeatedly casting doubt on his innocence is a very good way to keep around at least one person whom a good number of people are suspect of. This creates sort of a buffer, I suppose you could say, someone to take the attention off the actual scum. Maybe it wasn't a calculated move, but I don't think it would've been a bad one from a scum perspective, in any case."

 

[NonAnalogue]

"Repeat, where in the world did you get that popcorn?"

"Don't question it, chief."

 

[Dragonfree]

((I won't be substantially around until later tonight, and I'm going to have to do some rereading before I can properly be sure what I think about Mia, but I can't not make a brief pure IC post here))

Dave stood up abruptly, stepping in front of Mia. "Hey, fuck off. Mia hasn't k- I-" He stopped. "Look, she's not-"

He fell silent, but stayed where he was, throwing a wary glance over his shoulder.

 

[Virgil134]

Cabot carefully listened to Starr and Lachlan’s arguments as to why Mia was guilty. He had to admit, they did make sense. It was true the way Mia defended Dave and talked about the Mafia earlier seemed genuine… but so did Psyduck when she told her story, yet she turned out to be a Mafia member and totally crazy at that! Not to mention Mia dodged the question about how she got here in a way that even made Loki’s interaction with him the prior day seem normal.

“I’m sorry Dave, but I agree with Starr and Lachlan,” Cabot hesitantly said. “I vote for Mia as well.”

The Cranidos turned towards Mia and looked her straight in the eyes.

“At first I suspected Loki and Lachlan because of how quiet they were, but not you. I mean you were silently watching everyone for most of the time and it was a little creepy… but after seeing you defend Dave and hearing him talk about how much you mean to him, I figured there was no way you could be one of the bad guys.

But… that doesn’t really mean anything, now does it? You’re not from the same world as Dave, so you’re not really the Mia that he knows and trusts. You’re just a stranger who acts all mysterious about how you got here. When I asked you, you just asked how I got here, even though I already told about it in detail and you spend most of the day observing people! And you didn’t seem to care at all when I brought up again what happened to my friends…”

Cabot paused, briefly looking down at the ground before looking back up at Mia with a defiant scowl.

“I just have a bad feeling about you, and Starr and Lachlan already explained why defending Dave on the first day would be something you could have done for your own benefit. So yeah, given that and everything else they just said about you, I think you’re a member of the Mafia!”

 

[Namohysip]

Hecto watched as all eyes turned to Mia.

“I must admit that I have not had very much suspicion of Mia at first, but have grown to suspect her as well, but perhaps not for the same reasons as Starr...” Hecto looked down, puzzled. “Her actions lately, particularly today, have been peculiar. Perhaps it is the stress of our numbers dwindling... but at the same time, what if Mia had once been innocent, but is actually converted?”

Hecto scanned the crowd, eyes flashing on every one. “Just as there is talk about a healer, surely we have a detective of some kind, too. I was briefed by my guardian spirit that apparently that is a very common power to be present in these scenarios. And I am wondering why they are so quiet. Perhaps it is because, by probability, they have only been seeing innocents. And that information, with the knowledge of a convert, makes every reading of an innocent invalid.”

((Or because, like the healer, it’s a really coveted role. When you shoot for the king, make sure you don’t miss, and all that.))

Hecto nodded, but then suppressed a whine. “Alternatively, Infinite or Karo could have been our detective. Or even our healer. We know nothing of their powers, should they have had any.”

 

[M&F]

[[OOC: oh well. I was hoping that all the scare-formatting wasn't going to be enough for anyone to pick up the impression that chibi pika's post was worth its weight in, like, oxygen, but it's apparently made enough of an impression to grind all of the actually worthwhile discussion to a halt. alright, then. at the risk of wrestling with pigs more than I've already done too much of in this game, meet me around 10 PM or so (my timezone) behind the dennys for what will hopefully be the kicking that punts us back on a productive track.

by which I mean, big mean post coming soon. within like an hour, but I am not a punctual girl-]]

 

[M&F]

Mia took stock of all the eyes on her. "What? Is this because I said it's dumb to talk to invisible people in the sky? Uuuuugh, here we go again..."

[[OOC: well, I'm just a little bit late. I did tell y'all I'm not a punctual girl, right?

((i've addressed this specifically in excruciating detail probably three or four times now. you've still said nothing of it except for doubling down. once again, this does not make me feel better.))

you did not. you didn't even respond to all my posts on the previous day, and for the one you did, you sidestepped the primary argument in order to spew some chaff about how I was scumming you for voting Dave, which was just the first of many -2 on your book report. you keep acting like you've already refuted or even disputed my arguments and no such a post exists; you're just repeating yourself exactly as unconvincingly as the first time and then claiming that I'm doubling down. sorry if asking the same questions gets you the same answers and a side of snark, I guess!

“Right. So here’s the thing. You said you weren’t pushing the Lachlan wagon because he voted for Dave. Said that a couple times. So then tell me why, every time I hear those words, I can’t help feeling like they’re trying to make me think the opposite.” She glances around at the others. “Tell me it’s not just me, right? I can’t be the only one getting a weird-ass contrary vibe from every word floating around Mia. And that’s without even getting into the constant bussing.”

for someone who's complained a lot about players whose reasoning you can't seem to follow, this makes no sense at all. the opposite, as in, I'm really actually pushing for Lachaln because he voted for Dave? what's that even supposed to mean? and flinging super vague shit like "a weird-ass contrary vibe" should be, like, worthless as far as argumentation goes, but hey, apparently I have to spell that out.

(also, that's not what bussing means, but that's neither here nor there)

((I’ll quote specific examples later, but pretty much every single word in Mia’s last post has me on high alert.))

you never got around to that, by the way. your supposed big honking complete list of reasons to scum only touches upon one aspect of the aforementioned post, and is uselessly vague about it. a lot more bark than bite here.

• Throwing a weak accusation at Psyduck day 1 (I know I used this as a point of confidence earlier, but on reread, it was really flimsy and didn’t go anywhere, and then Psyduck was confirmed mafia, which puts it in a whole new light.)

• so, what new light is this? the confirmation was a whole day after I went after Psyduck at all. I'll happily admit that I was pushing buttons without fully expecting to be right, which is why I haven't been at any point out here trying to make that out to be an argument in favor of me being innocent. touting it as a point in favour of me being scum is bizarre, though. what's even your reasoning there?

• Subtly and repeatedly backing up Psyduck’s various attempts to manipulate our idea of what the Mafia “might do” while banking on the previous shade-casting to make it seem like the two weren’t working together.

• this is vague as hell. I might have bitten more of his bait than I'd be proud to admit now, but I'd like to see you point out where I back him up, or where I even raise the matter of the D1 shade other than a throwaway comment from after his surrender. and by the way, explaining things to you that you just weren't getting doesn't count as backing him up; note how Dragonfree was suspecting him without the exclusion of understanding the reasoning he was attempting to build up at all.

• I didn’t raise any eyebrows at the Lachlan wagon starting. I was curious to see where it went too. But I’m not convinced it went anywhere good. Lachlan gave perfectly fair counters to each of the reasons, and his motivation/narrative remained consistent throughout. Mia, on the other hand, constantly revised the reasons why it was a good train to follow, and doubled down even harder with each time Lachlan pointed out why it wouldn’t provide any useful info, almost like his reasoning didn’t matter, and had no chance of ever changing her mind.

• this is blatantly false. again, qva never even put out any word directly questioning the core point that I had myself raised. and my argumentation was perfectly consistent, for that matter. but hey, if you want people who insist on the same points and ignore reasoning raised against it, qva is right over there.

• Throwing out a token vote for Psyduck at the last second after she was already doomed seems too ridiculously scummy to be real. But at the same time, I can’t fathom any genuine motivation for doing that.

• friends and folks of the town, you all made me do this. you all made me dignify such an argument as "voting to lynch a self-confessed mafioso is actually extremely scummy" with even the minimum acknowledgement of existance. this is on your consciences. I hope you can't sleep at night thinking about it -- after all, that'd be advantageous towards stopping night kills, am I right?

• Defending Dave sure was a hell of a gambit, wasn’t it. But think about it like this: Dave was already on thin ice, and keeping an easy lynch for later is more useful than getting rid of him right off the bat and then having to fight an uphill battle with the quiet characters. Either that or nightkilling him and wasting people’s time trying to get them to read into it.

I agree with you here. I hadn't thought of this before, but something worth noting though is that it benefits mafia to have as many divisive townies alive as possible. That is to say, moving to keep Dave alive despite the relatively large train on him, and then repeatedly casting doubt on his innocence is a very good way to keep around at least one person whom a good number of people are suspect of. This creates sort of a buffer, I suppose you could say, someone to take the attention off the actual scum. Maybe it wasn't a calculated move, but I don't think it would've been a bad one from a scum perspective, in any case."

I'd love to visit the alternate universe you all come from where a controversial townie is worth more to the mob than a dead one! least of all one that I would've have gotten killed by just not saying anything.

• Lamenting the subsequent easy lynch on Dave because it means we’ll have a harder time finding the recruit. Come on. Seeing how people react to being given Dave on a silver platter will let us find the recruit later. (Granted, I’m kinda botching that right now by going for the obvious mafia in front of us and letting the recruit live another day, but whatever. Since we know the recruit is only a mafia goon, I’m treating original mafia as potentially more dangerous.)

• reacting to someone being scummed via nighttime information is, like, one of the least alignment-indicative possible things that exist. in any case, you might think I wasn't correct in that sentiment, but as an argument towards me being scum for saying that, it's a reach and a half.

• Jumping on the easy Dave lynch. Come. On. I was ridiculously overdramatic for a reason. Also strikes me as something done with the confidence of someone who already knew their murder had gone undetected.

• yeah, forgive me for taking your word on anything, I'm glad I already learned that lesson. anyways, so I'm not afraid of using the bold words, specially when I'm not sure I'll be around to see the day through to crunchtime, yawn, sue me.

• Token weak suspicion toward me after my narrative had already been cross-referenced with information that I couldn’t have had before claiming. At least invent an inconsistency in my narrative across the past few days or something.

• go ahead, point me to a single thing you posted that you couldn't possibly have falsified. does it bother you when I don't roll over and accept everything you say without a second thought?

and honestly, the worst part is that I'm not even sure whether I should be reading malice or incompetence here; I'm more inclined towards the former in qva's case, but as for chibi pika, well. let's just say that, as a frequent GM, I've learned that, as it turns out, batshit posts are not always alignment-indicative. I might've stayed on that psyduck's track better if I hadn't known that, even.

anyway, can we get back to useful talking points now?]]

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave furrowed his brow as the accusations piled up. "Okay. Hold on. Some of this makes sense, but some of it really fucking doesn't."

((Doing this OOC, because a lot of the stuff I'm referencing was said OOC, and Dave's going to be super-aggressive about it otherwise in a way I'm not quite comfortable with.

So I'm really not seeing the supposed backpedaling regarding Lachlan? M&F explained her vote there from the start as being on the basis that qva was being overly defensive in response to the whole idea of lynching people who are quiet. She never suggested qva was scummy simply for being quiet, much less for voting Dave; she explicitly stated multiple times that she did not think being quiet was alignment-indicative in itself and that voting for Dave was not scummy. This whole line of questioning seems weird to me; I can't tell where the accusation that she shifted or backpedaled on anything is coming from. Can you point to the actual posts you're talking about?

“Right. So here’s the thing. You said you weren’t pushing the Lachlan wagon because he voted for Dave. Said that a couple times. So then tell me why, every time I hear those words, I can’t help feeling like they’re trying to make me think the opposite.” She glances around at the others. “Tell me it’s not just me, right? I can’t be the only one getting a weird-ass contrary vibe from every word floating around Mia. And that’s without even getting into the constant bussing.”

What... does this actually mean? A 'contrary vibe'? I'm honestly confused. Can you elaborate on what you're thinking there?

Also:

Throwing out a token vote for Psyduck at the last second after she was already doomed seems too ridiculously scummy to be real. But at the same time, I can’t fathom any genuine motivation for doing that.

So... town!Mia would've not switched her vote to Psyduck upon seeing Psyduck confessing to being mafia? What? ?_? I don't understand this logic at all. Are you actually arguing she's suspicious for not having voted for Psyduck earlier? That would make sense (to the extent that suspecting people just for not voting for someone who turns out to be mafia generally would), but this really doesn't.

The other points about Mia's interactions with Psyduck and why she might've voted to keep Dave around are a lot stronger, I think, but I'd really appreciate some clarification on what you're getting at in these bits; some of this feels like confirmation bias.

Either way I'd like to wait for Mia's defense before drawing any conclusions.))

 

[Dragonfree]

((okay, anti-ninja feature failed me))

 

[kyeugh]

you did not. you didn't even respond to all my posts on the previous day, and for the one you did, you sidestepped the primary argument in order to spew some chaff about how I was scumming you for voting Dave, which was just the first of many -2 on your book report. you keep acting like you've already refuted or even disputed my arguments and no such a post exists; you're just repeating yourself exactly as unconvincingly as the first time and then claiming that I'm doubling down. sorry if asking the same questions gets you the same answers and a side of snark, I guess!

((all right. i guess just saying that i've already addressed it doesn't fly so i'm going to quote every time i've explained why lynching inactives is a bad, anti-town move, since apparently it doesn't count unless i'm repeating it for the fifth time.

Spoiler: surprisingly, a ton of text

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.

anyway, moving on from that, i'm going to go back over why lynching inactives isn't great. it seems like the feeling is that lynching inactives is okay because, like, you know, it's no major loss if it's a mislynch, right? they weren't talking that much in the first place. which, okay, true, it probably won't have much of an impact on the total amount of discussion being generated, but this is exactly why it's a bad idea. broadly speaking, the reason you elect to lynch someone is because you think there is a decent chance they may be mafia. (currently my understanding is that the reasons i might be mafia are that i was inactive [i am no longer inactive atm hehe], and that i voted dave, which many other people did. so i'm not really understanding that aspect of the train.) anyway, there are two possible outcomes of a lynch:

- the person lynched flips mafia, and their previous messages can be reanalzyed to discern connections between them and potential scum partners;
- or the person lynched flips innocent, and the messages surrounding their bandwagon can be analyzed to discern likely wolves pushing it.

lynching an inactive just because they're inactive does neither of these things, because there is not much discussion coming from or at them to pick apart. so, okay, maybe there is a minimal chance that i am actually mafia, but it doesn't seem to me like any of you ACTUALLY believe that beyond just thinking i'm your "best option" or whatever... and idk, i'm hearing "yeah, inactivity isn't necessarily alignment indicative" and "yeah, i don't think we can say anyone is scum for voting for dave," but somehow both of these things are incriminating when applied to me, since i'm already on the spot here.

so yes, lynching an inactive has minimal impact. that is exactly why it's bad. you don't WANT minimal impact lynches, because they generate the smallest amount of information to analyze. THAT'S why they're advantageous to scum— lynching inactives seems appealing even to true town because it's "no real loss," but the aftermath doesn't really provide very much useful information. free kill.

so, uh, yeah. idk. going for players you have barely information on vs players who have lots of spew to analyze is not that advantageous. minimum impact is not what you want, because it generates the smallest amount of information. and honestly? shooting in the dark is always your worst option. i think there is enough information to work with here that it's not our only one, too.

don't really agree here. forcing suspicions onto someone who can argue back is quite a lot harder than sort of going for inactives instead, since inactives are less likely to argue back, of course. plus, lots of earnest town players don't see why lynching inactives IS bad for town (this conversation is kind of indicative of that, even), which makes it easier for that train to be pushed. depending on how many people are playing the game from a pure rp perspective like you are, you might have a point with dave there, but my feeling is that dave is kind of just understood to be douchey because It's Dave, and the suspicion on him came from somewhere else. honestly, i'm not really sure where, and retrospectively i'm glad we didn't lynch him, because dragonfree is probably my strongest townread at the moment, lol. but yeah, generally speaking, sussing people who are actually present is certainly NOT easier than sort of just shoving on inactives, especially if you're in a game where many players have no qualms about lynching inactives just because they're inactive.

... i don't think you're wrong about the fact that inactives are also ideal nightkills, but i don't think it precludes trying to get them lynched during the day, either, especially if you think there's a good chance a lynch train on them would succeed. mafia is always going to be going for the cleanest and most convenient kill possible. even if inactives are good night targets, they're still quite good to focus on during the day, too, because people are willing to vote in that direction, so i don't think your argument here really rules it out.

so in conclusion, yes, i actually have belabored to death your single flimsy point about how Lynching Inactives Is Good, Actually. assuming you even had such a point, which is increasingly unclear, since it seems more and more like your real purpose for voting was just "hm, there's a wagon, i want to kill someone, let's go for it." out of curiosity, do you even read my posts? would you like to finally actually rebutt it any way other than shaking your head "nuh uh" and requoting old posts i've already addressed, or should we just skip ahead to the lynch already?

I'd love to visit the alternate universe you all come from where a controversial townie is worth more to the mob than a dead one! least of all one that I would've have gotten killed by just not saying anything.

well don't waste any money on interdimensional tickets, i guess, because you're already there. abstaining on day one is actually bad for town, and having a controversial townie around to sling blame at whenever the going gets hot is extremely convenient for scum. setting up and establishing town credit is, like, what good mafia are supposed to do. slinging blame onto innocent townies without being detected is also what good mafia are supposed to do. i'm not really convinced that "um that doesn't happen actually" really shuts down all possible thought on what motivation scum might have for defending a townie, even day one, which surprisingly sometimes happens.

i agree that some of chibi's points are a bit of a stretch, but there is pretty much no direction to go, and basically all of your posts have been pretty unnecessarily hostile, averse to the exploration of new information (i.e. instant skepticism to claims or any leads that depend on claims), and overall just not that helpful. you keep acting like this is a drag and you want to get back to discussing something useful, but it doesn't seem like you actually have anything useful to say other than "this is too vague" in a game based on inference, on someone who already accurately hunted down a wolf JUST YESTERDAY based on piecing together nebulous pieces of information. if anything, your response here makes me feel even more confident about this vote.))