haha, seems like mostly you're just misreading my tone a lot here, i guess. will address things case-by-case but i'm not really intending to be rude here and sorry if it came off that way, this is just the way i'm used to playing mafia, hehe.
Now then qva, lemme get to your post first. To be clear, this is the one you made in direct response to mine, since when I started writing this I hadn’t read your current one yet. First off, I’m sorry to hear you won’t have the time to write an RP post today. However, when I signed up for this I told Negrek that I’d strictly choose who to vote for based on what made the most sense from Cabot’s perspective. After all, this is fan fiction Mafia and not regular Mafia, so my decisions will be made depending on what I see from others while RPing and not the OOC stuff. I know that’s not how everyone plays this game, but it is how I personally approach this. Because of that, I won’t be taking any meta stuff into account when it comes to deciding who to vote for. Especially since there’s no way for me to tell how truthful people even are when talking OOC. These OOC posts are a good place to lie to your fellow players and from what I’ve seen it’s what typically happens during regular forum Mafia.
mm. this explains some of the things you've said a bit better, i guess, although i think it's just fundamentally not how i'm looking at the game. i'm sort of curious how many people are playing the game this way now that you mention it, actually? i hadn't considered it. my understanding was that this is just a normal mafia game with some fanfic-related flavoring for funsies. for me, rping is a bit difficult here because i haven't written lachlan in ages and he's a bit underdeveloped (and some other reasons i'll bring up later, since you mention it later), so i'm really not reading into that stuff so much, and am basically just taking things at face value. if OTHERS are also only taking ic things into account then, uh, this is even more layered than i thought, and i'm going to need to read the thread again with that in mind, hahaha. would anyone else who's playing the game this way mind sounding off? definitely something vital to forming opinions, i think.
Second, the reason I said your arguments don’t hold up is because they were based on an incomplete assumption. In that post, you talked multiple times about why it’s a bad idea to jail people simply because they’re inactive, but you never mentioned the fact you had Lachlan accuse Dave. This is important, since you’re not being suspected for being inactive, but you’re being suspected for being inactive and voting for Dave, which is not a trivial difference. I know you have acknowledged it now in your post where you replied to me (I’ll get to that in a bit), but you didn’t in your first one, which is what that comment about your arguments not holding up was in respond to.
makes sense. kind of. i still don't really agree, but i got into that in the previous post, so i'll leave it there, haha. definitely hearing you loud and clear there, though.
Also I wanna ask you something before I go on What did you mean exactly when you used the word “scummy”? You see, English isn’t my native language so sometimes I tend to read things the wrong way. I'm trying to assume the best, but if I didn’t know any better I’d read it as you essentially calling your fellow players scumbags because one of the reasons they suspect you is of how inactive you’ve been. That would be more than a little disrespectful and uncalled for, so I doubt that’s what you meant, but that confusion is the reason why I’m asking. Are you referring to something that seems “Mafia-esque” or something? Again, I just don’t want there to be any misunderstandings.
yeah, "scum" means "mafia," basically. i might have also referred to them as "wolves" at some point? not sure. sorry if that was unclear, definitely seems like something easy to misread as derogatory, haha. no offense intended.
Anyway, let’s talk a bit more in detail about the arguments you’re making in your post responding to mine. Assuming “scum” means “Mafia-esque”, one point you raised as to why you’re not guilty is that Mafia members are more likely to vote for someone who has been quiet because it’s easier for them. I don’t agree with this for two reasons. The first reason is that it would actually be harder for them and not an obvious move at all. Or at least, not this early on in the game. With how little info we got and the fact that RPing does play a big role in this version of Mafia, a more obvious move would be to react to what an Innocent does say and accuse that person based on that. There’s a reason why Dave got so many votes during the previous day. We had nothing to go on, but Dave acted kinda like a douche, so it was as good of a lead as any to some. A similar thing is happening with Walrein (will talk more about how I feel about this theory in a bit), who is being accused because of jokes he made. My point is that it’s easier to convince others to go along with you based on what someone has said rather than something someone hasn’t said. I think it could definitely work later on in the game, but at this point it wouldn’t really make sense for the Mafia to do.
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.
The second reason I don’t agree with your argument is that for a Mafia member it’s actually easier to eliminate a quiet Innocent during the night, than try to jail him. Like you said yourself, when a quiet person gets eliminated very little information gets revealed to the town. So rather than trying to convince everyone to vote for somebody based on stuff that person isn’t doing, it’s much easier to just kill that person during the night and give the town as little info as possible the next day. It’s essentially a free kill.
valid point. 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.
Your second argument about how a Mafia member would more likely not vote for Dave to avoid suspicion is certainly valid, but not one I agree with. You see, while at the end of the day the majority did vote for not jailing anyone, during the voting process things were quite close and there were moments where things were not looking in Dave’s favor. Because of that, voting for Dave is something the Mafia could easily do without seeming suspicious. Looking back at it in retrospect and knowing what the final results are, yeah you can argue that not voting for Dave is an obvious choice to avoid suspicion. But if you take into account the circumstances around the time the votes were cast, it’s not that obvious at all. That’s why I don’t agree with your argument and do think it’s likely the Mafia voted for Dave. I admit it can go either way and my argument isn’t foolproof either, but with what little info we got I do think there’s a greater chance that the Mafia voted for Dave during the previous day.
agreed. it is almost certain that
some mafia voted for dave, if not all of them. still, because of how close the call was, i still think that's incidental, and i don't really believe the fact that anyone voted for dave is really a mark against them on its own. basically, even though i agree that scum probably did vote on dave, i don't think the act of voting for dave on its own is alignment indicative in its own right. reading too much in to it isn't going to lead to any seriously strong leads, i don't think, though it is a convenient diversion...
The third thing of your post I wanted to comment on wasn’t really an argument you made, but still something I thought was worth responding to. Namely the “imagine layering it behind a narrative, lol.” part. As I explained earlier in my post, I personally make my voting decisions based on what makes sense from Cabot’s perspective. I also mentioned that I understand not everyone plays the game this way. To me, the purpose of the game is finding out who the Mafia members are through RPing, but if there’s other players who don’t care about the RPing to that extent and prefer to mostly theorize OOC, then that’s perfectly fine. But the way I read that sentence of yours, you make it sound like you’re making fun of how other people are playing the game, which I honestly think is kinda rude.
nah, wasn't making fun of anyone here. my point was just that it took me ages to write up that post even when i was just cutting to the chase and speaking plainly, and it would've taken me ages longer to bury that behind narrative... probably impractically long. the rp aspect is cool and but since i was pressed for time at the moment, it was a bit yeesh wrt to actually writing an rp post, and it's definitely some work to sift through it all, haha. not making fun of anyone about it though. i did sign up for a rp mafia game here :p
To briefly touch on your most recent post, I will say that the way you describe how things happened does not really match up with how you came across to me in your first reply. You never made it clear how busy you really were, never mentioned anything about a move, and your tone definitely did not match up with “sorry about that, i just haven't been around because i'm in the middle of stuff”. If that’s what you intended, then alright I believe you, but I hope you understand that’s not how I perceived you when I responded to your first post. I still haven’t made up my mind who to vote for, and it’s true that you’re active now so maybe you can change my mind. Dragonfree is certainly not doing a bad job at it, but I think acting a little less defensive would do you good… or at least when OOC. If Lachlan’s the type of guy to act defensive in these sort of situations, then that’s perfectly fine of course. Just remember that this is a game, okay?
i know it's just a game, haha. this is just the way i'm used to playing it. i am a bit defensive because getting threatened with a lynch for being quiet, and then getting doubled down on once i actually started talking was fairly alarming. i did not mention a move because i didn't think it was pertinent until i was getting pressed even harder. didn't mean to come off as rude there— again, i think we're just used to playing this game sort of differently from one another, hehe. sorry about that.
Anyway, enough about that. Moving on to the Walrein/Psyduck theory! I think it’s actually quite interesting, and if it’s true it would have been a brilliant move from Walrein. I do think it sounds like a bit of stretch, but honestly the same could be said about my theory lol. That said, I think it’s something I rather explore during the next day, since I’m obviously a little biased towards my own theory and rather try that for now.
never played with walrein, but they seem quite experienced, so i wouldn't put it past them. chibi definitely seems to have some sort of mechanical confirmation, i guess? so we will see where that goes, haha.
anyway, yeah, broadly: sorry if i came off angry or rude or anything like that. i am not angry, i'm just playing the game the way i know how, haha. i still really don't believe that lynching inactives is a smart move at all, though, and we should avoid it if we can... and i think we can. i'll be very interested to hear what chibi has to say. don't really want to say too much more until we get word on that.