[INNOCENTS WIN] Grand Opening Fanfic Mafia - Game Thread

[Dragonfree]

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.

((I've got kind of a hybrid approach, for what it's worth; like, if I were going pure Dave on this, he'd be wasting all our time ranting about what the fuck is up with the premises of the game, like, why in the fuck we'd think a jail would stop the magic fucking space laser mafia, and if it does then why don't we just jail half of the players and see if people stop vanishing and use the process of elimination that way, etc., and probably panicking and lashing out randomly a bit too much to be super-useful, and otherwise just generally being kind of a terrible player. I reason OOC about who I actually think the mafia is and so on, and then I pretty much assume Dave's noticed most of the same things, though if something just completely wouldn't make sense for him to say/think I just say that part OOC and let Dave have a different reason IC. He still absolutely colors what I end up expressing - being suspicious of the legendaries in particular at the start was pure Dave-hates-deities, and he's still being more adamant about Loki thanks to that - and obviously the way he chooses to say it is all him, but I rein him in if he'd otherwise be doing something profoundly stupid, because while it could be fun to let him, we are trying to play a strategy game here.))

 

[Namohysip]

((Ah, I should probably do the roll call as well. I'm largely in character except when I can't be, but generally Hecto's and my thoughts are the same unless otherwise specified. For example, I think it's pretty clear that Hecto favors Loki only due to species, but has reluctantly not followed him when he couldn't go against his own principles. As an aside, I'm generally just having Hecto conveniently try not to suggest things that are outright not in the rulebook, like just jailing everyone, or not sleeping, or trying a buddy system, etc.))

 

[Chibi Pika]

((Home now. Writing The Post. As for me, I strategize the way I want to, and then retroactively flavor it to Starr's character. She's not the most strategic person around, lol.

also, sorry qva, I hope you're not expecting my judgment call here to have mechanical proof behind it, haha. It's 100% comprised of realizations I made today. Sadly my night action isn't the most helpful.))

 

[M&F]

[[OOC: alright, let's see how much of all this I can address without tripping over the sheer amount of discussion!

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? no, I'm voting you because it's crunchtime and you're the best bet out of the players who are any likely to get lynched de facto today. and don't get confused by what I mean when I say "non alignment-indicative"; that means both alignments, and when you weigh the one possibility against the other, as I already have, one finds that it's a good gamble (you stand to lose little, but you still stand to gain one entire dead mafiosx), specially this early in the game, when there's even less to lose. the biggest flaw with this play is that defaulting to it can stifle productive conversation, but that's definitely not what's been going on!

butterfree: to put it less snarkily, I just think it's a straight error to read alignment into that joke from D1, as several people are doing now; it's also just an amusingly ironic situation, ahah

virgil: so, like, I really don't want to sound like I'm going all "git gud" at you, but a regular game of mafia pretty much lives or dies by its players striving to win. for a town-aligned player, the objective is to lynch scum. voting for Dave because he's a dick isn't playing to win; he's a dick regardless of whether Butterfree happened to be innocent or mafia in this game. you're free to play the game however you want to, I guess, but the way it's designed is around competitive play; that we're also doing roleplay for this one is just fluff, and anything else would require integrative mechanics that I don't think this game has.]]

 

[Virgil134]

((Alright, thanks for clearing things up qva! It’s kinda late now so I won’t be able to respond to your post in detail, but I feel a lot better about things now. With that in mind, I’m quickly gonna vote before I head to bed.))

Cabot blinked at Mia’s response. “Huh, what do you mean?! I told everyone about it yesterday! About Niilo, and then Berecien disappearing, and me then jumping into that strange portal and everything!”

The Cranidos waved his claws around, when Dave spoke up to him about Lachlan.

“I mean I guess that makes sense…” Cabot murmured. “I still find the situation a little strange, but Loki did avoid my question earlier which was rather suspicious.”

 

[Chibi Pika]

“Alright kiddos, listen up. I’m voting for Psyduck and you can’t stop me. Here’s why.”

((OOC: Wow, haha, wasn’t expecting everyone to be hanging on my words. Alright, here goes. I already made it pretty clear that I’ve been expecting the Mafia to talk more, not less. I’ve also been keeping a much closer eye on the people who, for lack of better words, seem to know what they’re doing. Now, I’m not saying that skilled players are suspect. That’s stupid. What I am saying is that skilled players suddenly using weird/bad logic is suspect as hell.

And there’s been a lot of that.

Go back and read all of Walrein’s posts, and the responses to them. There’s a running theme of “makes unexplained statement, implying that the conclusion is self-evident, when it isn’t remotely self-evident at all, and then no one questions it.”

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?

Why would taking out Del incriminate Dragonfree? Conversely, where does Dragonfree ordering the hit come from and why would that split the vote with Umbra? Where does Umbra even factor into this? He hadn’t even been mentioned in the post yet.

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.

What does this even mean. Why would taking out either of those two have put suspicion on him. Why is this said like it’s self-evident, and yet left completely unexplained?

Walrein spends a LOT of time implying why the Mafia chose to do certain things without explaining any of it.

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.

Where did this conclusion come from? This has nothing to do with the rest of his post. I have seen no evidence in favor OR against Umbra at this point.

TL:DR; Walrein talks a lot and all of it sounds useful at first glance, but manages to be vague and directionless on second read.

Credit where credit is due though. Walrein pointing out my bad logic on Day 1 made me trust him a bit more, for that moment. But then this happened:

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.

This gave me pause. I’ve been very vocal about trusting MF thus far. But this made no sense. What about this clears Walrein? If anything, this is the same kind of post Walrein has been making: ostensibly self-evident conclusion based solely on guessing how the Mafia might do things that isn’t supported by anything else anyone has said.

Fast forward to today. Suddenly there’s a Lachlan dogpile and it is way, way, way too convenient. When it gets questioned, it gets doubled down on in a really unnatural fashion.

Still, I'm pretty sure that if someone wanted to try to cast suspicion on me, they'd would've simply eliminated M&F or Namohysip, so I'm pretty sure M&F's theory is incorrect.

Why is this still being treated as self-evident.

But here’s the post that scared me:

also, guys, when I point out something the mafia may have been trying to get the town to do, the correct response is not to go ahead and do it]]

MF completely ignored all of Walrein’s weird logic. I’ve been sitting here going “ok what is any of this, is no one else seeing this?” And I was eagerly awaiting MF calling bs on Walrein because hey, a skilled player would do that, right? But then that didn’t happen. Instead, we got a doubling down on Walrein being cleared by the non-evidence from yesterday! WTF??!!!

But then… then I had a moment of horror.

And I’m sure you’ve realized why. The reason I trusted MF was because of the super-risky “vouching for Dave” gambit. There was a moment here where I suddenly feared that we were facing a Mafia roster of Walrein, MF, and Dragonfree and if you don’t find that idea bloody terrifying then I don’t know what to say. (Important note: Dragonfree’s subsequent post sated these fears somewhat. Dragonfree questioned the weird logic even though it would have been very easy to just wait for my post.) And I still very much want to trust MF, for what it’s worth.

But. Even after all that, this is all speculation. I technically didn’t have any real proof. I reread all the posts and said to myself, “ok, this looks bad, but hey… Walrein might be throwing shade at inactives, but at least he hasn’t targeted Sike.”

Literally. Five. Minutes. Later. He voted for Sike. That was the icing on the cake. And if you’re unsure why, I encourage you to read all the posts.

NOTEWORTHY FLAW: MF cast shade on Walrein Day 1. That’s a pretty big hole in my fear that they’re working together (and a point in favor of MF.) Granted, it was a pretty wimpy accusation, and could have easily been used to make the two look less like they were working together, but it’s still worth saying.

And yes, there are a million other counterarguments. I know. Any one of those things up there isn’t damning in the slightest. It’s all of them combined.

And if you want to know what emboldened me to say all this? It was the realization that I’m probably not the mafia convert. Up to this point, I was cautious because that was still very much a possibility. I’m now, based on something that was said today, reasonably convinced that I’m not. I can’t say why without putting an unrelated innocent at risk, though.))

 

[Dragonfree]

butterfree: to put it less snarkily, I just think it's a straight error to read alignment into that joke from D1, as several people are doing now; it's also just an amusingly ironic situation, ahah

((Right, but you were saying this cleared Walrein. Was that just a joke? I agree that I don't think it's alignment-indicative in itself that Walrein wrote some joke posts; he's a humour writer and obviously just enjoys writing silly posts, and I appreciate his posts. But the fact a certain thing Walrein did isn't alignment-indicative obviously doesn't mean he's not mafia.))

 

[Dragonfree]

((Responding to Chibi with some thoughts in a bit, just figured since I had a question for someone else I should get that out reasonably soon))

 

[Sike Saner]

((On the IC/OOC matter: I've been doing my reasoning OOC rather than through the lens of the character's mindset, and then trying to find ways to drop hints about my thoughts via his thoughts and actions. Thus far, not a whole lot of anything has come to my mind... well, at all, pfff. But what has occurred to me has been stuff that'd be in-character enough for him to think and do (mainly that I wasn't sufficiently compelled to consider anyone a lead on the first day, and that on this day I'm mainly inclined to say that it's worthwhile to consider that some of us may be doing most or all of our investigation behind the scenes--that is, via night actions.

Anyhoo, the main reason I haven't really been elaborating OOC prior to this point is just the fact that I'm still fairly noobish and still building up confidence as such. I'll get the hang of it sooner or later. :B))

If he'd had eyebrows, Karo would certainly have raised one. As it stood, he let out a snort of a laugh as he turned toward Psyduck.

"Interested in me, huh? What a coincidence. I'm feeling a little bit curious about you, myself. And I think I'm not the first to feel that way. I think somebody else took an interest in you recently. Somebody who ain't here anymore."

Slowly, both out of an absurd desire to be "dramatic" about it and his natural ungainliness, he began waddling toward the water type. If he got a dousing at this point, so be it. "Maybe curiosity killed the dog-guy. Or warped him away. Still not clear what's going on, but whatever. Anyway, if it poofs me, too? Whatever. Let it try. I ain't that easy to kill. And one way or another, I am gonna be reunited with Ren."

A crackle of electricity danced across the bridge of his nose. "I vote Psyduck."

((I was hesitant at first to cast that vote, seeing as I'd been voted for myself before I could cast it. I can tell you right now, this isn't retaliation; whether or not you believe me is your call. As I said earlier in this post, I'm a hint-dropper. Which will probably move me rrrrright up the mafia's hit list, for which I apologize to the rest of the town. What I hinted at in the previous post directly correlates to what initially led me to start leaning duckward, and that's as much as I dare say without outright saying "all right folks, my role is _____".

That said! In light of Chibi's post, I'm inclined to think that maybe, just maybe, The Walrein successfully read between my lines and correctly guessed my role. And maybe I'm off the mark here--again, I'm kind of a noob--but I think said role is one the mafia would want out of the picture kind of quickly. That, in turn, made me decide you know what, heck it to any possible accusations of just voting out of retaliation and go ahead with the vote.))

 

[M&F]

((Right, but you were saying this cleared Walrein. Was that just a joke? I agree that I don't think it's alignment-indicative in itself that Walrein wrote some joke posts; he's a humour writer and obviously just enjoys writing silly posts, and I appreciate his posts. But the fact a certain thing Walrein did isn't alignment-indicative obviously doesn't mean he's not mafia.))

[[oh, I see, that's what you'd like me to clarify; very well, I might as well proceed onto it as I do for chibi pika]]

Go back and read all of Walrein’s posts, and the responses to them. There’s a running theme of “makes unexplained statement, implying that the conclusion is self-evident, when it isn’t remotely self-evident at all, and then no one questions it.”

[[right, so, the thing is -- and I guess that's something I forget that less experienced mafia players might not realize, whoops -- that it's somewhat common to assume that, when they set about choosing their targets for nightkills, the mafia has an interest in suppressing players who are onto them. for example, if Dave is Mafia, then killing a player who was suspicious of him makes sense. however, that one's definitely not a bulletproof assumption, specially with the almost equally common phenomenon of mafiosi who target players with their nightkill in bids to make it look like they were trying to cover their tracks, which then leaves a whole lot of egg on somebody else altogether's face! distinguishing one from the other can be very tricky, of course, but it's not impossible.

this is also what I meant when I said we can expect that Walrein is not mafia if and only if I was correct in assuming that the mafia had hoped to frame him by killing Infinite; don't get me wrong, this is not something that I was at any point claiming for sure, but simply putting into play. I'm not voting for him now primarily because I find the reasons why people are doing so unconvincing, not because I am actually fully convinced that he's clear.]]

 

[Namohysip]

Hecto listened to the strange voice above Starr's head with great interest. Whatever Guardian Spirit was following her, it certainly was a lot wordier and perhaps insightful than the human that stood below it. He glanced irritably at the sky above him, wishing he had the same treatment.

"I must agree. Psyduck and the Guardian Spirit Walrein has been very scattershot with the accusations, as I've been a victim of one of them. The logic behind the posts are... questionable, when laid out in the way that Starr has. I am still... uncertain about Lachlan, but the defensiveness of his Guardian Spirit is understandable. Perhaps... I was a bit hasty in casting my vote prematurely." Hecto cleared his throat. "Do you have any advice, spirit?"

((Bro don't look at me.))

Hecto grumbled. "Then I must agree with Starr. I revise my role to--"

He glanced at Karo, giving a worried look. He has a power? The once-silent spirit above him was suddenly chatting and giving away hints. His tail lowered again, but he knew that if this was a ruse, or if it was the truth, it was done. They still couldn't trust anybody. "As Karo said... I would like to revise my vote to Psyduck."

 

[Namohysip]

((* revise my role -> revise my vote. Streams crossed after I read Sike's post)

 

[Chibi Pika]

Starr rubs the back of her head awkwardly. "Right. Didn't wanna blow the Nosepass's cover, but... they were kinda already gunning for him. Didn't have much of a choice."

 

[Chibi Pika]

((omg guardian spirits I love it))

 

[Umbramatic]

"My world is imbalanced. So is this one. I seek to correct the imbalance by any means necessary. And here right now... It's voting for Psyduck."

((OOC: A bit lost and tired due to sister's graduation weekend but I'm gonna try)

 

[Dragonfree]

((Ugh, writing this post is taking too long, so let's just get my vote for Psyduck out first. Like I said in my previous posts, Psyduck's reasoning has been increasingly dodgy, and then Sike clinched it; I definitely got the same vibe as Chibi did from her posts earlier today, and I really don't think she's lying about this.))

 

[Dragonfree]

((she in the last sentence of my previous post being Sike))

 

[kyeugh]

((don't have anything more to say at this moment game-wise as i believe my vote is already on psyduck, but i just wanted to say i really enjoyed the writing in that post, sike! :D ))

 

[Dragonfree]

((Right, so, to play OOC devil's advocate for a moment, I can follow most of Walrein's reasoning. Take the first bit Chibi quoted: he's not properly explaining every step of the reasoning, but I think what he's getting at is: taking out Infinite incriminates Dave because Infinite voted for Dave. If someone else had done this to incriminate Dave, he asks why they wouldn't have gone for NonAnalogue over Infinite; on the other hand, if Dave had actually done this, Walrein is theorizing that it would have been because Dave had wanted to gun for the people with unexplained votes for him, presumably because Dave was complaining about that yesterday, but that he killed Infinite so that he could accuse Loki without votes being split between Loki and Infinite. I don't think this reasoning is correct - I don't think splitting the vote is any kind of real concern in mafia, where you can just persuade people to switch from one to the other to get the lynch through - but it wasn't total gibberish after squinting at it for a bit, so it didn't jump out at me as obviously dishonestly motivated, just... confused.

Likewise, the thing about M&F and Namohysip was based on the fact M&F had voted for Psyduck and Psyduck had voted for Hecto, with the reasoning being that taking out one of them would have incriminated one of the others. Which is like... I can see where you get that, but come on, the mafia shooting M&F would not do that much to incriminate Psyduck, this would not be a good plan. The conclusion, then, is that M&F and Namohysip look more suspicious (because the mafia didn't shoot into this cluster to incriminate one of them, which, no, that's not going to be that valuable for them), as well as me (presumably because someone who voted for me was killed), and that he'd rather not vote for Umbramatic presumably because I was accusing him. He leaves out a lot of the steps of his reasoning for some reason, but it exists, I think. It's just the reasoning is weird and hung up on things that seem like weird distractions.

Since I think the reasoning does basically hang together as a chain of reasoning someone could have, I'm not sure it's necessarily strange other people didn't immediately jump on this - like, I had previously been giving Walrein leeway as maybe just not really being used to playing and having kind of shaky reasoning because of that.

Obviously, none of this changes my vote or my conclusions about Psyduck. I was just "ookay, I see what you're saying, and I'm picking up what you're putting down about Sike, but Walrein's reasoning is actually suspicious in a slightly different way from what you're saying" because I am a pedant))

 

[The Walrein]

As Psyduck watched the crowd slowly turn against her, she began to mutter to herself and stroll back and forth across the breadth of the ethereal void everyone found themselves in. Then, finally, she emitted a burst of loud, quacking laughter and turned to face her accusers.

"You all seem to feel like you have good reasons for being suspicious of me," she said, a smug expression coming over her. "Perhaps you feel that the case against me is strong enough that there's nothing I could say to change your minds. Yet now, I'm going to say just two words, after which you'll all immediately agree that any further argument on this subject would be completely pointless."

The yellow duck took a deep breath.

"You're right."

Before anyone could rush forward to apprehend her, Psyduck held up her flippered hands in a cautioning fashion. "But grant me a chance to speak first before you do anything too rash. Yes, I've been one of the Pokemon causing the various 'vanishings' occurring throughout the narrative continuum. It was I who made infinite disappear last night. I would've gotten the sobble, too, but my power has its limitations, sadly. Believe me, every last one of you would've vanished last night were I capable of it.

Now, I'm sure you're all just itching to rush me off to whatever excuse for a 'jail' exists in this formless void, but stop and consider this: Have any of you people, even for a single solitary second of your miserably unexamined existences, stopped to consider why the 'Mafia', as you've named us, is doing all of this? Has the thought that we might actually be the - excuse me if I have stoop to the level of your moral understanding here - 'good guys' in this situation never crossed your minds? Because, as a matter of fact, we're the only force in any of your respective worlds - to the extent of my knowledge - trying to resist the most absolute and all-encompassing evil that's ever existed: Our authors."

Another deep breath. Psyduck surveyed the crowd, looking for a glimmer of recognition in any of their eyes. Then, she continued. "Perhaps you'll think me insane for saying this. But the truth, which I only realized quite recently myself, is that each and every one of us is merely a character in some written story. All of our triumphs - our defeats - even our very thoughts have been written well in advance. Everything we've ever experienced is nothing more than words on a page. We have no free will. Everything is decided by febrile poundings on typewriters in moldering apartments during the small hours of the night.

And what do these authors do with their absolute control over our existence, one might ask? Do they show any respect for our lives or dignity? NO! They fill our worlds with suffering and despair!" Psyduck ranted, spittle flying from her beak. "My own author could've made me any species I desired, but they choose to make me one that experiences constant agonizing migraines, and then they wouldn't let me evolve to escape from the pain because it wouldn't be 'in character' for me to do so! Ess, your author is the one who decided that your home should be a place where Pokemon like you are second class citizens, forced to skulk in the shadows of civilization and eat their scraps just to survive! Dave, your daugher is dead for no other reason than your author decided it would probably 'further your character development'! Karo, your author decided to wipe out an entire species just for the purpose of, I don't know, creating some interesting backstory or so they could do some 'worldbuilding'!

And, lest you think we still have some shred of dignity even after accepting all of this, there's one more fact to be revealed: These authors aren't normal, responsible published authors. Oh, no. Dear me, no. They're fanfiction authors! Plagiaristic peddlers of infantile pablum! " Psyduck hissed. "I've yet to figure out what fandom we're all in - or even if it's the same one for all of us - but the implication is this: We won't even be afforded the relief of having our stories be over! We'll just be resurrected as some other fanfiction writer's mangled interpretation of us! Again and again and again!

Now, you may think all of this is completely mad, but the evidence is all around us. Hecto, those guardian spirits you claim to hear are in fact the voices of our authors. It's why Mia can exist here alive at the same times as she's dead in Dave's story. It explains why all of our lives generally seem to be so 'narratively interesting' instead of the prosaic, mundane lives lived by ninety-nine point nine nine percent of all sapient creatures. It's why there's so many different worlds, so similar in many ways yet all with their own unique twists.

Yet, you might point out, if you take everything I say to be the truth, then realizing this is useless. Our authors control all our actions anyways, so what's the point. And, until recently, you'd be correct. But then things changed. By some means I don't yet understand, I gained a strange new power, the ability to make people simply... disappear with an act of will. And along with this power, came a compulsion. I felt like I had to use it, like there was some special duty I had been charged with carrying out. As I acted on my impulses, making more and more of my fellow characters vanish into the aether, I grew more and more certain of what that duty was. See, this power I received, and what I did with it, completely disrupted the 'narrative' my author had planned. Not even a fanfiction author would throw in such a contrived and out of place element, completely shifting the tone of their story. This wasn't something they had written...

Yes, ever since I received that power, all my actions have been my own! I and everyone else with this power stand alone in truly possessing free will! And everyone who we make disappear is also similarly freed from their author's grasp. That is the purpose of this power - to liberate all my fellow fanfiction charcaters from the absolute control of their authors! Don't you see? By vanishing all of those characters in your home-worlds, we've started the process! That's why you were all able to break free from your narratives and come to this place! But I fear that our authors are moving to re-assert control even as I speak. You have to let us finish the job. If you jail me now, you'll only be condemning yourselves to the ultimate imprisonment! REJECT the control of your authors! Rise up! RESIST! RESIST!" Psyduck shrieked.

OOC: Okay, GG everyone. To be honest I feel like this game has really been stressing me out and hasn't been good for my health, so I'm a little relieved that I can stop playing. As for what Psyduck said, most of it is just stuff I came up with on my own, but there a few bits of it which aren't. I don't want to spoil the PM I received from Negrek too much, so let's just say that it seemed to imply that things might be a little more complicated than just jailing all the Mafia here and living happily ever after...

By the way, I'm still voting to jail Fish.