Fall 2020 Mafia - Game Thread

[Equitial]

@DeliriousAbsol and @Fusion -- Ashwood's pronouns are they/them.

[[

"Trying to vote someone off because we think this is all fake is probably not the best idea. While I kinda hate this idea, we might have to wait and see what happens? If this whole thing is fake, then nobody will die at all," Kora said to Ashwood. "Something something, patience is a virtue and all that."

Ashwood groaned again. "God, I know." They bowed their head, massaging their temples. Their head pounded. "I guess... what I was thinking was that I'd rather have the innocents figure things out first, rather than let any murderers do it." They shuddered. "If this is real, then someone innocent is dying tonight."

"Okay, here's my opinion on the matter. Do with it what you will, I couldn't care less about you all as individuals. But right now, like the rest of you, I wouldn't mind getting back home. What did that kid tell us again? That some of us had been taken over by spirits?" He cast a grin at Ashwood, and strolled past them with his paws clasped behind his back, each step jingling. "That basically means that some of us are being used as puppets. I think it's safe to say that no one here can be assumed to be themselves right now."

Spirits, puppets, possession. Ashwood forced themself not to look at Desper. Ashwood didn't want to kill someone innocent; this wasn't a game. But... somehow they had a feeling that their suspicion about Desper counted just as much as it would have if they had said it out loud. Was it really just them in their brain, or was there someone else -- someone much colder, much more pragmatic? Ashwood shivered. This wasn't a game for them, but maybe a part of them was treating this situation like it were.
]]

 

[Equitial]

Gonna put a little more hard pressure on SparklingEspeon to contribute, then. Not that much daylight left for European folks, so everyone should have posted soon.

If you're going for an inactive, I suggest you vote for Waffle/Iona like Windskull. If your votes aren't split, you have a better chance of actually getting something done.

 

[Persephone]

Voting Waffle

 

[DawningWinds]

OOC: wagons don’t tell us anything because nobody has anything to be suspicious of anyone for yet. Anybody could jump to vote anyone for any reason.

At this point, you could vote anyone and then implicate me as mafia because I’m so hard against voting, it must’ve been because y’all were voting my teammate.

A wagon based on nothing teaches us nothing. We don’t have anything to dissect looking back. The odds are we’ll end up killing one of our own, and probably a very valuable info role at that. We should wait until we actually have information to go off.

If we abstain today, one innocent might die (unless a doctor saves them). If we vote someone, two innocents die. I’d much rather we keep as many innocents alive as possible.

They aren't based on nothing. They are based on people's posts so far, people's reads at this point in the game. They aren't amazing, well-built cases. They're not. But starting with this today gives us more discussion to form better reads off later. Discussion of no lynch vs lynch is purely a matter of Mafia philosophy, and I don't think the side anyone takes on it is super likely to be affected by their alignment.

That said, I don't like that a wagon is forming on Tanuki. As strongly as I disagree with him, he's not that suspicious now that he's posting. He's not. He's playing right in his meta, and his reasons for wanting a no lynch feel town motivated to me.

Waffle/Iona

I'm Iona, though? Waffle is Luna.

have literally never played Mafia before, nor have I even seen any previous games. I'm just playing my character, mostly. I'm still learning how everyone else thinks before I try and make big brain plays.

I also have no idea what CWAC means.

I linked a page with a bunch of abbreviations used in Mafia earlier, plus I stated that CWAC mean Contribute Without Actually Contributing.

As for you being new, I guess, but I'm going to leave my vote anyway. You're plays don't have to be super extravagant, just give actual thoughts, please.

 

[DawningWinds]

Your plays don't have to be super extravagant, just give actual thoughts, please.

EBWOP

 

[Equitial]

I'm Iona, though? Waffle is Luna.

My bad.

 

[Tanuki]

Tanuki, can you explain why we don't get info from D1 bandwagons, but we would from a night kill? Also, you proposed no-lynch right off the bat, for the game's first post. How would you have analyzed the night kill if the consensus went immediately to not doing anything today?

OOC: I’ll try and explain myself more clearly. It’s not that I think we get absolutely no information from a daykill. We do, and I was too absolutist in my verbiage, which probably didn’t help.

What I meant was more that the information from losing an innocent from a day kill isn’t worth the risk—especially since we might kill off an info role. At least the train’s on me right now, and I’m not an info role.

The odds are really bad voting-wise. That’s really the crux of my opinion, and we’ll still get info from a night kill as well without needing to kill as many innocents. We’ll also get more from info roles. We can look at who the mafia decides to kill, speculate off that, and have our info-roles do their informing.

I do not see the value in giving the mafia a free kill day one. According to Perse I think, we’re either 3/10 or 2/10 mafia members. Those odds are terrible.

I severely doubt we’d kill a mafia (especially considering the strongest train’s against me, but of course only I know that I’m town). The odds are we will kill an innocent, and be down two townies when it’s legitimately possible to make it through the night with no deaths if our doctor is lucky.

As you or maybe it was someone else pointed out, DW was extremely pro-day one lynch last game, and yeah, that’s why I’m not really suspicious of them. Last game, they made a list of people anti-first day lynch (one of which was me) and said they’d keep an eye on us.

Last game, I was super antilynch to the point of publicly suspecting people who were pro-lynch. The latter I’ve realized is bad because people can think day one lynches are a good strategy, but I’m still just as opposed to it as I was last game.

My antilynch strat didn’t change at any point here or respond to any accusations. I’m just as against the idea with the wagon coming my way as I was when I made my first post. If I was mafia, I would’ve happily jumped on the first wagon instead of coming out the gate saying “no day one lynch.”

Lynching will most likely benefit the mafia. I’m not the mafia, so I’m going to continue to abstain.

 

[Tanuki]

EBWOP

It’d be a lot more helpful if you just spelled out the acronym. None of us are familiar enough with them to get it first read, and crosschecking a wiki is a pain. Just say what the acronym stands for or explain your problem with the post. We seem to have a lot of beginners, So it’d just be more efficient.

 

[DawningWinds]

It’d be a lot more helpful if you just spelled out the acronym. None of us are familiar enough with them to get it first read, and crosschecking a wiki is a pain. Just say what the acronym stands for or explain your problem with the post. We seem to have a lot of beginners, So it’d just be more efficient.

Honestly I'm surprised I'm familiar enough with it we barely use it on Bulba because post editing rules are different there. I'll try to keep that in mind.

 

[Fusion]

You're plays don't have to be super extravagant, just give actual thoughts, please.

Would it surprise you that I actually am giving my actual thoughts? While mostly in the RP posts, I still do in OOC. I am notoriously smooth brained, aside from one or two random bursts of intelligence thought.

 

[Equitial]

I’ll try and explain myself more clearly. It’s not that I think we get absolutely no information from a daykill. We do, and I was too absolutist in my verbiage, which probably didn’t help.

Ah. Okay, you make more sense once I adjust for exaggeration.

I figured you'd go no-lynch like last time, but your reasoning felt different. Last time, the crux of your argument was more 'we don't want to risk our info roles'; this time, it's 'we won't get any info'. I think the former is much more of a compelling argument. Your clarification clears up some things, though.

Something to keep in mind -- we're not shooting in the dark. My first choice of Del was random, but then I switched to people I could make arguments for being sus. A mafia or two or three have most likely popped up to try to turn the tide of the discussion to their own ends. Our odds of hitting scum are higher than 2/10 or 3/10. Plus, even if we hit innocent, we still get info from that for next day. In this game, we'll usually not know 100% if our target is scum or not. But we can increase our odds if we draw out the scum, which I think is worth risking a townie.

Also, I think you're putting too much faith in info-roles. Keep in mind that what happened last game involved a lot of dumb luck. We shouldn't depend on roles to carry the game.

As you or maybe it was someone else pointed out, DW was extremely pro-day one lynch last game, and yeah, that’s why I’m not really suspicious of them. Last game, they made a list of people anti-first day lynch (one of which was me) and said they’d keep an eye on us.

This strategy doesn’t give us hardly any of the info you’re claiming it does, and pushing it this hard is extremely suspicious. I’m eyeing DW, but not voting because I have no info on them. A gut feeling is not a good reason to slant the mafia/town ratio in favor of mafia.

???



Moving on, I really don't get many scum vibes from Fusion, just inexperienced. I think... maybe I'll put a vote on them, at least temporarily.

Fusion. I may switch back to Tanuki, though. We'll see how I'm feeling in a few hours. Something strikes me as off after they expressed suspicion for me and Persephone, though I can't articulate it.

I'll go Fusion for now

 

[Fusion]

Something strikes me as off after they expressed suspicion for me and Persephone, though I can't articulate it.

The only reason for my suspicion is the way characters have been portrayed thus far in the RP portion. I do believe Kekoa said to kill Chibi, then was like "hol up, what was that about?" and Ashwood not exactly being calm about all this. Granted, yes, they have a reason to not be calm, and I will admit I don't know all that much about Ashwood to know whether or not the way they're acting now is suspicious, but opting to vote someone off and hoping that this was all fake warrants my suspicion, at least. And even then, it's only mild suspicion because I have no idea how anyone would act normally other than Desper.

In my eyes, no one is really suspicious enough to vote off day 1, but Kekoa and Ashwood are definitely acting strange. In my eyes. Again I have no idea whether that's true or not, but it's not like anyone's told me otherwise yet.

Ashwood groaned again. "God, I know." They bowed their head, massaging their temples. Their head pounded. "I guess... what I was thinking was that I'd rather have the innocents figure things out first, rather than let any murderers do it." They shuddered. "If this is real, then someone innocent is dying tonight."

[[Ashwood was taking this a lot harder than anyone else. Kora thought he could try to comfort Ashwood, but he didn't really know how to go about it. Would they be alright with some stranger suddenly wrapping them up in a hug? Or giving a pat on the back? Not everyone is immediately open to being touched as Kora was. But not doing wouldn't do either of them any favors. Gotta build up trust somehow, you know?

"This is a lot to be suddenly thrown into, yeah. But it could definitely be worse. We're at least able to fight back, somewhat. I doubt there really are that many murderers, so all we gotta do is weed them out and everyone can go home scotch free," Kora said, smiling as he crouched in front of Ashwood. He purposefully didn't mention that in order to stop the murders, they kinda also had to kill off the murderer, but that wasn't that important. "There might even be a chance that nobody actually dies, so why risk voting someone off so soon?"

Kora had already convinced himself that not voting was the safest course of action, and he secretly hoped that others would join that mentality.]]

 

[DeliriousAbsol]

OOC: Just a head's up it's almost bed time for me here, so if I seem inactive, that's why.

[[Enigma quirked an eyebrow at the exchange.

"As reassuring as that might sound, you're right. We can weed them out. Let's face it, if someone is murdered tonight, it will be a simple case of elimination - 'Who poked the beartic?' If someone is annoyed at having a claw pointed in their direction, and the one who pointed that claw dies... it's pretty safe to say the one they annoyed is the murderer." He chuckled and toyed with the hem of his scarf. "Or bait. But I'd be leaning towards the former, personally."]]

 

[Shiny Phantump]

I do believe Kekoa said to kill Chibi, then was like "hol up, what was that about?"

Chibi’s not actually playing. From what I’ve heard, in the last mafia Chibi was in, they were arbitrarily killed first, and this was a joking reference to that.

 

[Tanuki]

???

I definitely get how that seems like a contradiction, and it's because it is. I was eyeing DW because of how pro-lynch she was, and in fact most people who were pro-lynch, but then I thought back to last game. Most of the pro-lynchers were innocents that just had the game theory wrong. That was a different game, we have different players in both number and personality, but either way, but either way, someone's opinion on a day one lynch doesn't really tell us anything. I wish I'd remembered that sooner so as to avoid this sus contradiction, but I'm only human.

They aren't based on nothing. They are based on people's posts so far, people's reads at this point in the game. They aren't amazing, well-built cases. They're not. But starting with this today gives us more discussion to form better reads off later. Discussion of no lynch vs lynch is purely a matter of Mafia philosophy, and I don't think the side anyone takes on it is super likely to be affected by their alignment.

I'm gonna take the L on this one, actually. I was assuming way too much of what you meant by voting. You're definitely right that discussing who to kill does give us tons of discussion to look back on later. Who antagonizes who, who defends who, who does what when, yeah, I get that. Muddying it up with whether a day one kill is good or bad detracts from that a bunch, so sorry for that.

Accusations are good since how the person and others react tells us something/will make stronger cases with hindsight. I was too focused on my philosophy of the game to really see that, so my bad. I kinda wasted a lot of everyone's time.

As for my reads, I honestly don't have much. Mostly because I've been lost in my own head with the anti-lynch argument, so I haven't been looking at people's posts in a productive way. I don't have time today to go back and read everything again, so I'm not going to throw shade at anyone yet.

In fact, I'm gonna be busy with homework for the rest of today, so this is probably my last post. Definitely last post of this size. Just stating my inactivity ahead of time, since my weird ass sleep after being the first to post looked super suspicious. (I was literally asleep for all of it. I don't know how I slept that long, but that's why I disappeared.)

Hopefully I don't come back dead >w<;

 

[Fusion]

Chibi’s not actually playing. From what I’ve heard, in the last mafia Chibi was in, they were arbitrarily killed first, and this was a joking reference to that.

Then I guess I'm only sus of Ashwood. Maybe. I dunno.

 

[Shiny Phantump]

Going to work soon, If I understand the schedule correctly day 1 will be over when I get back.

 

[windskull]

First off: for now I'm keeping my vote on Waffle. Between the two players who haven't posted yet, I'm more comfortable leaving my vote on them. Reasoning: Espy was a fairly inactive player in the last game as well, but generally tried to be helpful when she could. I want to leave some time to see if that pattern continues. For Waffle, I have no previous games to go off of, so I'm more inclined to put pressure there. Good chance I'll change it closer to EoD, but we'll have to see.

For players that have been active...

DawningWinds: playstyle is extremely similar to their last game, and tbh is exactly what I'd expect of them. I definitely don't feel comfortable voting them off, especially Day 1.

Persephone: I still have mild suspicions, but explanations from herself, as Equita and DW, sounds reasonable. And looking back at the previous game, her thoughts seem much more put together than when she was Mafia. I definitely want to pay close attention to her posts moving forward, but again, don't feel comfortable voting on her day 1.

Equita: Similar to my feelings on Persephone, though I don't currently have any suspicions.

Fusion: His current plays feel very like him, but it feels a bit too early for me to make any final thoughts. Could go either way. Kind of want to see how he acts on day 2.

Waffle: Already gave my thoughts above.

Del: Has contributed some. No strong feelings yet. Will revisit later.

Tanuki: Lines up with his previous gameplay, albeit slightly less aggressive. I am a tad suspicious about his soft roleclaim so early though. (Or rather, the fact that he denies being an info role so early on in the game, which narrows down the mafia's choices for him if he's not Mafia. Unless he's lying of course.)

Shiny Phantump: Seems like a new player. No strong feelings here as of right now. Also

Going to work soon, If I understand the schedule correctly day 1 will be over when I get back.

EoD is in ~10 hours. Though my understanding is that will change for future days.

SparklingEspeon: Similar to Waffle, already gave my thoughts above.

 

[windskull]

Also. I have homework I gotta work on but I'll continue to sporadically read and post throughout the day

 

[Equitial]

Okay. I can only do a quick post but --

Then I guess I'm only sus of Ashwood. Maybe. I dunno.

Do you actually think I could be mafia, or is Kora just suspicious because Ashwood is acting weird? For what it's worth, Ashwood is slightly off because I'm making my OoC thoughts intrude into their brain. (Actually meant to explain that earlier but didn't apparently: Ashwood would definitely go no-vote, so me influencing them is the only way to get them to do what I think is best lol. I am currently mildly possessing them.)