[MAFIA WIN] Team Skull Recruitment Mafia (5th Anniversary Mafia)

[tomatorade]

Well, this had really turned into a melting pot for what was ostensibly a gang initiation. Isaac really didn't expect a member of the elite four to show up, that was for sure. Though who really knew what they were doing in their off time. Joining gangs, apparently.

Still, with Guzma's announcement it was hard to know who to trust. Lots of friendly faces. Nobody here seemed that offside from each other. They would just have to rely on odds, for now.

He cleared his throat and spoke to the room.

"Well, no point voting anybody out immediately. Don't know like, the team composition, but the goons cant be more than half of who's here--then they'd just win. It's bad odds--we're way more likely to vote out on of our own than one of them. Let's just chill a minute and try to reason this out. Unless anyone's got something they need to say before the first night?"

 

[Dragonfree]

Sriracha's crest perked up hard at the sound of 'Chinchou Pokémorph' and looked up from the buffet snacks he was gorging on to swivel round and gawk at Jack.

"Oh, there's morphs here?" he crowed. "Alright! Nice! Give me high fives, new friend!"

He made a beeline for the boy, intent on cameraderie.

Jack stared as the Blaziken guy hurried up to him, crest fluffing. Looked real. Yellow sclera, fine feathers. And... he looked down at his feet and they were talons, just not human-shaped at all.

"Wh-- but how?" Jack's utter confusion gave way to a befuddled delight, and he broke into a grin. "I thought me and the others were the only Pokémorphs in the world? That's-- Where are you from? What's your name?"

Oh yeah, he'd asked for a high five. Jack raised his hand in invitation.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

The Blaziken-morph gave Jack a stingingly high-five, and crowed with delight.

"I'm Sriracha!" he announced. "I'm from Galar!"

He looked around at the odd group surrounding them with a perplexed sort of fascination.

"I think we're playing a game? I'm more interested in the food, though."

 

[Flyg0n]

"A game of deduction," Anubis mused, nodding in acknowledgement to Isaac. "Though given none of us know each other personally, we'll need to be clever."

It was good that nobody here was raring to pick fights yet. Gave them time to consider all the angles.

"As I understand it, 'homies' have powers that can help the rest of us homies. But revealing powers early could be risky if someone learned anything. The scum could try to kill them." He was mostly musing out loud, trying to recall what he knew of the game he'd learned from his packmates.

Anubis paced, then paused beside the snack table again to take a brownie. They were good. Better than anything Koa could bake. "And given our host for this game we could have more than just thugs to worry about."

 

[ShiniGojira]

Huh. Alola was home to some weird-looking folks. Oh well. He shrugged. Not like they were gonna bother him.

"Say, since the game's just started. Any chance one of y'all will reveal yourself?" Cygnus said with a slurp of his juice. "But for real though, considering the fact that third parties are a possibility and the fact that there are 11 players here, I'd say there should be around 2 thuggies and 1 TP since that equates to about a quarter of the total or just 3 thugs if there's no third party... Either that or everyone here is secretly a thug and nobody knows it which I think would be pretty funny."

 

[Panoramic_Vacuum]

Phoebe was blissfully ignorant of some of the stares she was receiving. She hummed to herself, peering at some of the darker, more shadowy corners of the room juuust in case there was a ghost pokemon there after all.

When the shadows remained devoid of supernatural life, she sighed, and took a peek at the small handout the grunts had handed her upon entering the room. It seemed like some folks had started talking about the game, and she should probably brush up on the rules Mr. Guzma laid out.

"Hm, it says here that there might even be some roles in the game that want to be voted out of the group; that's how they win!"

She looked toward Isaac and smiled. "I think what you said makes sense for today, especially with this kind of role out there."

 

[FauxFox]

"So our first order of business is figuring out how many non-homies there are so that we know how many nighttime threats there are, then try to figure out who's a homie so that we can band together, right?" Spencer asked.

"And I agree Phoebe and Anubis," he added, hoping he was getting the names right. "There could be some wild roles here, so we've got to be ready for anything. Especially if what the invite said is true and pretty much everyone has a power role."

 

[Chibi Pika]

"Hey, everybody. I'm Jack Ray, Chinchou Pokémorph. Yes, this is my real skin. Yes, these glow in the dark." He pulled one of his bulbs down a little and let go of it so it bobbed up and down. "I don't bite. Just here to have a good time. Has everyone played Mafia before, or does anyone need a crash course?"

"Ey. That's pretty sick," Stracion replied with a pair of finger guns. "As for the game, eh, I'm sure I'll pick it up as we go, how hard can it be?"

"I think we're playing a game? I'm more interested in the food, though."

"Cheers to that," Stracion said, raising a plastic cup full of knockoff Mtn Dew.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Sriracha nodded vaguely, looking around. "Yeah, those numbers sound okay," he said, obviously not understanding them. "It would make sense if you only had a couple bad guys, right? Because then if you don't catch them for a couple days, and they get rid of people each night, suddenly you're looking at..." He counted off on his clawed hands. "A third of the remaining players still being baddies. So if we play badly, we still have that many 'turns' before we're screwed. Longer if we're lucky or smart."

He frowned, eyeing the brownies woth interest.

"I dunno how to pick someone in a smart way on the first day, though. Nobody knows anything and anyone can say anything but it doesn't mean anything. Anything. Any thing. Ehhh neeee thinnnnnnng."

He clucked.

"Wait, lots of us have cool powers in this, right? That's cool. And some of us... might do stuff like make anyone who tries something on them in the night lose the game... Not so cool. Kinda makes you not wanna visit anyone just in case they got a gun and a temper, right?"

 

[Chibi Pika]

Stracion shrugged. “If that’s the case, anyone who’s got a gun oughta just act like they know what they’re talking about so the haters pay ‘em a visit and then—boom.” She mimicked the firing of a gun with her hand.

“Aaaanyway…”—she stretched widely and glanced at a nonexistent wristwatch—“guess I should try to actually, like, play.” Stracion glanced around at the rest of the party until her gaze fell on the guy with the dog horns. “Hey, Anubis, right? You up for voting anyone?”

 

[Dragonfree]

The Blaziken-morph gave Jack a stingingly high-five, and crowed with delight.

"I'm Sriracha!" he announced. "I'm from Galar!"

Jack smiled as he shook out the stinging in his hand. Galar? He didn't think that was a place, but he supposed it rang some kind of vague bell. "Sriracha? Like the sauce?"

People were starting to mutter about the game, though, and he couldn't miss that.

"Say, since the game's just started. Any chance one of y'all will reveal yourself?" Cygnus said with a slurp of his juice. "But for real though, considering the fact that third parties are a possibility and the fact that there are 11 players here, I'd say there should be around 2 thuggies and 1 TP since that equates to about a quarter of the total or just 3 thugs if there's no third party... Either that or everyone here is secretly a thug and nobody knows it which I think would be pretty funny."

"Or there could be more than one mafia, er, 'thug' group," Jack pointed out. "That was in the intro too, remember? We could have third parties or multiple anti-town factions. So we need to leave that one open as well." He scratched his head. "That's always a bit more to be paranoid about, because then it's harder to rule out people off interactions. Two people obviously at odds could both be mafia, just different mafias. Might be less likely with this setup, though? If there's multiple mafias, and each one has at least two people, that's a pretty high proportion of scum in a game of eleven people. Although that also does have the chance they get each other..."

He pinched the bridge of his nose. Multiple mafia factions were never quite as intuitive. "I guess... Right. If we imagine two mafia factions, and they have two people each, then it's also harder for them to get a majority, and they're likely to kill some of each other in the night even if town lynches wrong. So it'd be pretty swingy but I guess I can see it? It'd be likely to make for a shorter game but this was advertised as chaos and the balance doesn't seem ludicrous?" He shrugged. "At least we can hang on and see how many deaths we get tonight. Two deaths might mean two mafias. Or a vigilante, or a paranoid gun owner. Lots of possibilities for chaos either way."

He frowned a little at how eager some people were to dismiss the whole idea of eliminating anyone on the first day. "I mean, eliminating people is the town's main weapon. Yeah, we're going to be more likely to get town than mafia by picking at random, but that's why it's good to at least poke and prod a bit and see what falls out. I guess if there could be a faction that wins when voted out it's worth being a bit more careful, but... the one listed in the rules is Mimes, which only wins if all of them get eliminated, and probably then there's not just one or they'd be getting called a Jester. So I don't exactly think that makes it urgent to not eliminate anyone unless we're 100% sure, you know?"

 

[Dragonfree]

"Which is to say," he added, "yeah, town does have useful roles here that we might not want to lose, and I'm not saying we absolutely need to eliminate somebody either if we're not feeling it by the end of the day, but just coming right out the gate with, 'We're more likely to hit town than mafia so let's not eliminate anyone,' isn't very productive, and the mafia's going to breathe a big sigh of relief if everyone just goes along with that, you know?"

 

[Panoramic_Vacuum]

"Yeah I guess it would be pretty strange to have someone come right out and ask to be eliminated on the first day," Phoebe said, rocking back and forth on her heels. "Kind of silly to join a game and want to leave right away."

[[I did read some kind of Mime variant that had some weird wording about not all of them have to be eliminated the same way or something, but I also admit I've never seen the role in action before so I don't know how it works. Also have very limited experience with Day start games.]]

Phoebe giggled. "I know I'd like to stick around! It's more fun that way, and I'm pretty sure I could be helpful, too. But only after the night happens..." She trailed off, realizing that meant they'd have to wait to see what sorts of powers people might have. "It's probably that way for most people here."

"Which, I guess that's another reason to not eliminate someone today. They only just got here and wouldn't even get the chance to play much," she finished with a small frown.

[[The above is Phoebe flavor, but not really sure how Day start works to eliminate someone other than vibes? Kind of how in Night start Mafia, the scum team pick someone at random to shoot.

I have a feeling that either nothing is going to happen tonight, or everything is going to happen, and I have no idea which it will be 😂 ]]

 

[Flyg0n]

“Hey, Anubis, right? You up for voting anyone?”

Anubis considered for a few moments. "It seems hasty to vote so early," he said. "I don't fancy the idea of hitting another "homie" as its called, when we could have so few. On the other pa- er, hand, that may be all the reason for voting someone today..."

He hummed in thought and leaned on the table. Hm, now he saw why humans would lean like this. Two legs was tiring. "It wouldn't be particularly chaotic of our host if there's just a a few goons and homies, so either we have a few different goons or quite a few of those third party factions."

[[I've never been fond of daystart/opening day eliminations. People have laid out the math before but I just don't vibe. Of course, this game is particularly unique in that it could be chaotic and swingy. I kind of want to see what happens if we do nothing lol? but idk, that's risky too.]]

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Sriracha gave Jack a slightly hurt look. "My name's not Sauce," he said, like an exasperated young boy who had to explain this all the time. "It's Sriracha! Which... It might be a sauce. But I'm called Sriracha."

Oh, right, people were talking about strategy and stuff, and how just sitting around let the bad guys do whatever they want. Okay, that made sense.

"Okay, so, let's do something and find stuff out!" said Sriracha, punching one fist into his other palm. "Anyone wanna die?"

He paused for a moment to think. It looked like he found it difficult.

"If there is someone who wins by getting voted for, it'd be pretty silly if we could just end the game before anything happens just cause we pick their name out of a bucket or whatever." He thought some more. "Jeez, and it'd really suck if you had to be a bad guy all on your own. Or if you had like one buddy on your team and then they kicked the bucket straight away because of crazy powers."

He shook his head, feathers puffing up, and made a fowl-ish churring noise.

"Yeah, I think it'd be too silly for us to be able to end the game before anything happens. We ought to be able to pick someone without it ruining the game. Let's pick someone!"

The morph cheerfully pointed a claw at the last person to speak before him.

"I vote for the goth dude! I bet he gets real mad about it."

Sriracha's uncomplicated beaming grin indicated he'd chosen randomly, without thinking about it. It wasn't like there was anything to go off, after all.

Vote Anubis

 

[tomatorade]

Well, so much for taking it easy. Isaac leaned back as far as he could in his chair, eyes on the blaziken man. Seems they had an agent of chaos in their midst. He took what might be the last quiet moment in a bit to power down a handful of chips and some soda.

"Well, there goes the no vote. Note sure if you can take a vote back, but you seem pretty confident, don't know if I have the bravery to challenge that." He huffed, but with an obviously amused lilt to it. "And who wants to risk a tie? Anyway, it's probably a good idea to let the poor dude you voted for get a word in."

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Sriracha shrugged expansively.

"There's a whole day left! Loads of time."

 

[Chibi Pika]

Stracion pointed with the cup she was holding. "Yeah, blue boy's makin' a lot of sense imo."

"Anywho, truth be told I was thinkin' I'd vote for Anubis, but what he said doesn't seeeem like the reason he'd give if he were a hater, so eh. Soulread says no for the moment. Leeet's go with red hat over there. Whatsisname..."--she dug out a crumpled paper that must have been the participant list--"Cygnus? Yeah, why not."

Vote Cygnus

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

"Who's Cygnus?" asked Sriracha, obliviously. "I can't remember everyone. There's too many of us! For now, anyway."

Player Username	Character Name	Gender
Flyg0n	Anubis	Male
HelloYellow17	Rui	Female
FauxFox	Spencer	Male
Dragonfree	Jack	Male
tomatorade	Isaac	Male
ShiniGojira	Cygnus	Male
Chibi Pika	Stracion	Female
unrepentantAuthor	Sriracha	Male

Sriracha looked around for the kid named Cygnus. "Oh right, that guy. Said something about... two thugs and a third party, or everyone's secretly a thug."

He frowned.

"Was that a joke? I'm not secretly a thug. Are you secretly a thug, Cygnus?"

The blaziken-hybrid clearly... struggled with humour. He was trying his best, though!

 

[Panoramic_Vacuum]

[[FYI the player list you've got there is incomplete. It's missing Starlight, EonDuo, and myself, which were sign ups after Day 0 began.]]