• Welcome to Thousand Roads! You're welcome to view discussions or read our stories without registering, but you'll need an account to join in our events, interact with other members, or post one of your own fics. Why not become a member of our community? We'd love to have you!

    Join now!

[TOWN WINS] Third Anniversary Fanfic Mafia - Game Thread

Panoramic_Vacuum

Hoenn around
Partners
  1. aggron
  2. lairon
[[aaand semi sniped lol. At least I know one other person is just as ???? about this]]
 

Dragonfree

Moderator
Staff
Location
Iceland
Pronouns
she/her/hers
Partners
  1. butterfree
  2. mightyena
  3. charizard
  4. scyther-mia
  5. vulpix
  6. slugma
  7. chinchou
[[(Chibi is a they, Jet is a she)

The reason I’m not hugely bothered by Chibi doing a lot of suggesting they know or believe things without elaborating is that I can absolutely think of ways they might know or believe those things as town, where it would probably not be a good idea to explain further. I have a couple of theories about why Chibi/Jackie are townreading each other so hard, for instance (only one of them is mechanical).

Many players would just keep those sorts of things hidden entirely. Chibi is somebody who tends more towards talking a lot about what they know and believe and just not explaining why at all. It just reads like Chibi to me, not like Chibi with some scummy agenda - after all, openly not making any kind of persuasive case for anything is kind of a useless scum strategy, since no one has any reason to just believe you. Definitely understand being frustrated by it, though, and obviously any such statement isn’t very helpful.

This isn’t to say Chibi couldn’t be mafia, but I don’t think the being vague is scummy. I am interested in what they have to say about it, though.]]
 

Dragonfree

Moderator
Staff
Location
Iceland
Pronouns
she/her/hers
Partners
  1. butterfree
  2. mightyena
  3. charizard
  4. scyther-mia
  5. vulpix
  6. slugma
  7. chinchou
[[Or, to be more precise, any such statement is only helpful in that it tells us about what Chibi is thinking, and not in that it proves anything about the gamestate or we should take their word for it.]]
 

Panoramic_Vacuum

Hoenn around
Partners
  1. aggron
  2. lairon
[[ah apologies for messing up the pronouns. I'm sorry.

I guess I'm just confused by the logic of not explaining things, even just a little, as being towny. I want to be able to work together to win the game, but I don't know how to do that when I can't understand the players I'm trying to cooperate with. (Like when the hints are too vague)

I understand that from Chibis's gameplay I can see where they're pointing, but not why. Like the argument at the EoD in D1 about random lynches. If I can't understand the hints, it feels random. Is there nothing Chibi can do to elaborate just a bit so this doesn't feel random?

At this point enough attention has been called to it that I'm sure any explanation becomes dangerous, but it still leaves me frustrated that I don't know how to participate with "just trust me" as the reason. The way I play, "I will not elaborate" feels the same as being inactive. It gives me nothing to go on except being suspect because that's how this game works. I can certainly assume some reasons for Chibi's play but the last two times I've assumed things in this game I've been dead wrong so... ]]
 

Negrek

Abscission Ascendant
Staff
Twelve hours remain in Day Three. The vote stands thus:

Chibi Pika - 1 (Starlight Aurate)
Dragonfree - 1 (NeoLurosa)
IFBench - 1 (AbraPunk)
NeoLurosa - 1 (Virgil134)
Virgil134 - 1(Dragonfree)


@Starlight Aurate When putting in a vote, please make sure to put the text "Vote: <playername>" in bold on a separate line in your message. It can be hard for me to miss in a big post otherwise, and I sometimes search on "vote" when I'm checking the vote count. At least I'm assuming that was an official vote, sorry for the misunderstanding if you were just going for emphasis.
 

NeoLurosa

Junior Trainer
Pronouns
J:they/them HY:she
I can realistically see a scumteam with Free and either Abra or (but likely not both) Bench, with Free advising them to stay quiet.
[[Yellow here again. I’d like to clarify what I meant here since I used a poor choice of words initially. I realize this comes off as “telling your scum mates to shut up while you do all the work” which is not what I meant to imply! 😅 Rather, I was speculating that I could envision a scenario where one scum decides to proactively stealth-town while the others opt for a very minimal and low-key play style. Which is a valid and common scum strat and is one that has been used in TR games before. I apologize for the poor phrasing on my part here; by no means was I trying to accuse anyone of poor sportsmanship.]]
 

NeoLurosa

Junior Trainer
Pronouns
J:they/them HY:she
[[Jackie here. Fascinated by the votes as they stand. So uncoordinated! Gonna give everything another read, think some more. Understand why folks find vagueness frustrating, but refusing to explain why you believe things isn't scummy and I look forward to explaining myself when it's reasonable to do so, even if that's after the game ends. See y'all shortly.]]
 

Chibi Pika

Stay positive
Staff
Location
somewhere in spacetime
Pronouns
they/them
Partners
  1. pikachu-chibi
  2. lugia
  3. palkia
  4. lucario-shiny
  5. incineroar-starr
jet-bored1.png
"I don't care if you guys suspect me. I know I can prove what side I'm on. I just don't feel like doin' it yet."

jet-laugh.png
"Besides, if I let you guys think I'm a bad guy, that means that the REAL bad guys probably won't get rid of me at night! They'd rather get rid of someone no one would vote for!"

jet-grump.png
"And the reason I gotta do that is because my stupid VOICE is known for always dying right away! What gives?! Why should I get targeted because of that thing?!"

[[Y'know, it'd be really funny if I was the cop after all this. Shame that I'm not. Or am I? Who's to say.]]
 

Chibi Pika

Stay positive
Staff
Location
somewhere in spacetime
Pronouns
they/them
Partners
  1. pikachu-chibi
  2. lugia
  3. palkia
  4. lucario-shiny
  5. incineroar-starr
[[Alright, time to explain at least a few things. As should be obvious by now, I've been trying to collect suspicion. Why? Three reasons, one of which I'll keep private. The first and simplest was to survive the dreaded early nightkill, bane of my existence.]]

[[Jackie was correct--I basically decided to go for an exaggerated version of my Ebony playstyle, which is "be 100% confident about everything, get suspected a lot, hope that the mafia keep me around because I'm not a townlock and they can try to mislynch me, and if all else fails and they do nightkill me, at least they went for me instead of one of the crucial roles."]]

jet-confident.png
"The dumb Voice is lying. I have the best power! Everyone should be jealous of me! If the mafia tries to kill me, they'll, uh... they'll blow up! Yeah! Except I'll survive and also I'll get to make three votes on the next day! So you better not try anything!"

[[The second reason was a bit more complicated. I needed to gauge the personality of the mafia.]]

jet-bored.png
"This game is real slow and quiet! Almost everyone's afraid to have any opinions!"

[[The mafia has been very hesitant to express any strong opinions about anything at all, and extremely skittish about starting any wagons. I mean, I had to start both of them. I know that mafia are often allergic to starting wagons, but this was just getting silly. So I had to give them an easy target--me. Since I know that I'm innocent, seeing how everyone reacts to me was the perfect way for me to refine my reads.

[[Now, don't make the mistake of thinking that I expect people who suspect me to be scum. Not at all. What I was looking for specifically was wafflley sus with an unwillingness to commit. I would have liked to wait a bit longer before showing my hand, but this game is so slow oh my god if I waited until I got more votes we'd be at EoD and I'd be in class.]]

[[So yes, of course being vague served a purpose. People reveal themselves when they're frustrated.

- Archie got the most frustrated, which is interesting since Starlight herself has so frequently been in the position of knowing things and not wanting to say why. But at the same time, it could just be an honest mistake, and I was townreading her before this.
- Steven has been the most difficult for me to read in the game because he's been significantly less puzzle-solvey than normal. And there's something about Steven's pushiness that feels like that thing where you suspect someone's an inforole and you're trying to get them to come clean? Steven definitely strikes me as someone clever enough to figure out what I was going for and try to eliminate me for it. Interested in getting Free and Jackie's opinion on this because I admit I'm struggling, and I feel like getting a better read on Steven would help crack open the rest of the game.
- I feel sliiiightly better about Altair because I feel like scum!Altair would be more... I don't know. Bold? The extreme timidness of this mafia doesn't seem right for Altair. Maybe this is just what town!Altair looks like, idk.
- Altair and Kichiro are highly unlikely to be scumbuddies. Which sucks because I was kinda scumreading them both for a while.
- Bench feels genuine to me, which is why Tetra fixating on him for ??? reasons is pinging me a bit. I can see Negrek including a Bodyguard role after last game was oops all doctors.
- Either way, Tetra and Bench are highly unlikely to be scumbuddies. I could see a scum!tetra throwing out a token vote on Bench to avoid getting caught on the Sind train, but going for him again today would be weird.
- Tetra also feels like she's spent most of the game going "whoa this is crazy" over things that we've already kinda accepted and stopped talking about. Like three town mailmen, or "was Karo a serial killer", even when the latter wasn't relevant to Sind's case at all.
- Abra is of course a giant null. I do still think I'd expect to see some signs of coaching if they were scum. BUT I did think of one thing I don't want to ignore--2nd anni had a mafia traitor who wasn't in the scumchat. I don't know how likely it is that Negrek would do that again, but I don't want to forget the possibility.
- Now, this does make me remember that my argument against scum!Starlight was that her buddies would have told her to send different messages. But I think minion!Starlight is impossible because we know she's a mailman. Obviously she would have messaged her team N0. What if it had gotten swapped? What if an inforole had seen her do it and busted her lie that she sent nothing? Minion mailman is weirdly swingy in a way that I don't think Negrek would include.

[[All in all, I don't feel totally confident in my reads on everything, but I've at least got something to work with now. I'm pretty sure if I hadn't offered myself as bait, there'd have been even less posting this day phase. Why is this mafia so quiet. I highly suspect that most/all of them may be new to playing scum. That's why getting solid townreads on Free/Jackie was so important to me.]]

[[There's, what... 3-4 mafia? Probably 4? I feel like out of Abra, Inke, Pano, Virgil, and Tetra, at least three are probably mafia.]]

jet-grump.png
"You done talkin' yet? Jeez, you go on forever!"
 

NeoLurosa

Junior Trainer
Pronouns
J:they/them HY:she
[[Yellow again! After catching up on the thread, I’m inclined to ease up on my Free sus for now. I’m still wary of her, but tbh I’m probably always gonna be wary of Free lololol. Anyways, I’m inclined to think Chibi is town, and if Chibi is certain of Free’s innocence, I will trust their judgement for now.

Free’s summary post was very good and I like the reasoning she presented against Virgil. I don’t think I’ve played a game with Virgil before, but his posts just feel…off? He didn’t do much at all to defend himself, and his analysis of the game doesn’t quite line up, imo. I dunno, something just feels weird, and I’m in agreement with Free’s take that he has only claimed to find people sus *after* there’s already a wagon on them. I’m on board with switching my vote.]]

[[
Some thoughts from Jackie:

- I compared Chibi's playstyle as Jet to their playstyle as Ebony. That mode of play has since been well-described by Free a few posts above in a way which has me believing that both are Town. I have no idea how well Chibi is able to stealth as scum, but I doubt they'd be this consistent, and Free could easily discredit or disregard this rather than defend them as she has. That, plus Free's comprehensive recent analysis, give me much more confidence than before in both of them.

- I don't consider Virgil's analysis of mine and Yellow's play to be creditable. After spending a little while considering how our play might look to someone else, I don't think we fit the 'aggressively redirecting attention away from ourselves' strategy he's ascribed to us, and his reaction to my 'private reason' smells of either paranoid town or opportunist scum to me. He's acting like I tried to persuade anyone else to townlock Chibi when all I said was that *I* don't want to vote for them. I'll bother making an argument to defend them if they get wagoned. Needlessly writing a huge defence of Chibi would be truly sus behaviour, if you ask me, and I don't love that he's implying I should out myself as an inforole to prove the innocence of someone who's generally being read as town. Terrible move. As I said before, we've withheld our role to obfuscate roles and mess with Mafia target prioritisation. I think it's too early to mass-claim. Nevertheless, we can *prove* our role, if not our alignment, if necessary. I also find it hilarious that after I miseliminated silent townies in previous games and wanted to avoid repeating my mistake, he thinks that's fucking sus or something. Sure, he might just be Town and wrong, but I don't like his reasoning one bit.

- Bench and Abra are unusually quiet including in RP. In hindsight, I understand that both of them don’t often have long in-depth posts about the metagame and so on given their record of play, but it is *odd* even so. I will not be surprised if one is scum, and I'm willing to vote for them, but I've eliminated quiet players first in the past and it's a risk with little informational payoff. I'd rather find active, loud scum first and then deduce their buddies from their posts.

- Not sure about Inke and Pano, gonna need to look at them more closely.

- Starlight, please don't take it personally that I think mailman is a weak role or that the mail sent so far hasn't been helpful. I honestly felt like you or Sind might be antitown trying to get town to agree mailmen were indispensable, which I don't believe they are.

- Tetra's play is fairly consistent with indisposed townie Tetra, but that doesn't prove anything.

- DW feels like Town DW.]]

73A8BFFD-394A-46F3-8FF9-E1B988AB9C03.png "Hmm. Well, at least the game is proceeding. Whether our next elimination is innocent or guilty, we'll surely learn a great deal for the subsequent day." She frowned, tail flicking. "I hope you're still following, Neo? I apologise if this is all a little dry for your tastes."

Untitled_Artwork 1.pngUntitled_Artwork 9.png
Hm? Oh. Oh! Head-Friend was talking to him!

…he hadn’t been paying attention.

He was sure it was all smart stuff, though, so he chirped in agreement.
Untitled_Artwork 10.png

D3622D55-269A-49DF-AC61-8963832E15F2.png"Good lad. Hmm... Am I hungry for fried salt-cured belly meat, or is that your doing, sweetie?"

Untitled_Artwork 1.png
Neo had no idea what she was referring to, but meat sure sounded good. Especially bacon.
 

NeoLurosa

Junior Trainer
Pronouns
J:they/them HY:she
[[Jackie and I will reply more in-depth to Chibi’s post later, but we agree that this feels very much like a Town Chibi play. In the meantime:

Vote: Virgil/Kichiro]]
 

Flyg0n

Flygon connoisseur
Pronouns
She/her
Partners
  1. flygon
  2. swampert
  3. ho-oh
  4. crobat
  5. orbeetle
  6. joltik
  7. salandit
  8. tyrantrum
  9. porygon
[[sorry town folks, I'll do my best to get on later (out with a friend atm) and try to explain or clarify anything.

I totally get why I seem a little sus to some people. Ftr, after the posts today I'm not really keen on voting Bench anymore.

The other reason my plays have been so neutral was a chain reactions of sickness, distracted planning other things, and then irl being busy, so I wasn't able to contribute as much as I like (plus I work full time and this was a busy week, oops)

I do feel torn - I can follow Frees logic, but I don't feel convinced as others of chibi, but I feel juussstt enough not to be ultra sus. I do feel like NeoLurosa and Chibi townlocking each other would be a silly scum play though....

Anyways I am out to lunch so I'll try to get in later to offer thoughts or a vote ^^']]
 

Flyg0n

Flygon connoisseur
Pronouns
She/her
Partners
  1. flygon
  2. swampert
  3. ho-oh
  4. crobat
  5. orbeetle
  6. joltik
  7. salandit
  8. tyrantrum
  9. porygon
[[but also today is friends graduation celebration SOOO.... If you don't see me that's why! Irl stuff. Sorry folks]]
 

IFBench

Rescue Team Member
Location
Pokemon Paradise
Partners
  1. chikorita-saltriv
  2. bench-gen
  3. charmander
  4. snivy
  5. treecko
  6. tropius
  7. arctozolt
  8. wartortle
  9. zorua
[[Congratulations to your friends!]]
 

Dragonfree

Moderator
Staff
Location
Iceland
Pronouns
she/her/hers
Partners
  1. butterfree
  2. mightyena
  3. charizard
  4. scyther-mia
  5. vulpix
  6. slugma
  7. chinchou
[[I like Chibi’s reasoning about likely inexperienced mafia given how slow and timid the game has been.

Heads up, I will probably not be super available tonight either - going to see a musical with my grandma - but shooould be back before EoD at least.]]
 

DawningWinds

Ace Trainer
Partners
  1. hawlucha
[[I buy Chibi's sorta cop claim. I've been kinda wondering if they had an invest role for a little while, especially earlier today when they gave a townread they refused to elaborate on-- not strongly enough to prevent me from thinking they might be scum, but strongly enough that when they're nearly officially outing it it makes sense.

I like Chibi's readslist. I do disagree with a few points, but I agree pretty strongly with Tetra and Bench being unlikely scumbuddies now that its pointed out. But if I agree with the "inexperienced scumteam theory", which I think I do, there are some points I have to disagree with.

- Now, this does make me remember that my argument against scum!Starlight was that her buddies would have told her to send different messages. But I think minion!Starlight is impossible because we know she's a mailman. Obviously she would have messaged her team N0. What if it had gotten swapped? What if an inforole had seen her do it and busted her lie that she sent nothing? Minion mailman is weirdly swingy in a way that I don't think Negrek would include.
If her buddies are also inexperienced, they might not think tell her to send different messages.

I feel sliiiightly better about Altair because I feel like scum!Altair would be more... I don't know. Bold? The extreme timidness of this mafia doesn't seem right for Altair. Maybe this is just what town!Altair looks like, idk.
This is reasonable I do not have to disagree with it which makes it weird that its here. I've been scumreading Inke a little but I do think she's been more aggressive in past games I've played with her, both of which she was nontown I think. I'm not totally misremembering Second Anni-- she was scum there right?

Altair and Kichiro are highly unlikely to be scumbuddies. Which sucks because I was kinda scumreading them both for a while.
I can't think of an interaction that really separates them?? I'd have to look back because maybe I'm forgetting but I don't think I've seen one.

Abra is of course a giant null. I do still think I'd expect to see some signs of coaching if they were scum. BUT I did think of one thing I don't want to ignore-
I would not expect signs of coaching as much if we're assuming the entire scumteam is inexperienced. They might try and coach them but because they wouldn't know what they're doing either they'd also likely be unsure of what to do, I'd expect the coaching to be less obvious.
]]
 

Chibi Pika

Stay positive
Staff
Location
somewhere in spacetime
Pronouns
they/them
Partners
  1. pikachu-chibi
  2. lugia
  3. palkia
  4. lucario-shiny
  5. incineroar-starr
jet-neutral.png
"Someone already asked but I'ma ask again--hey, Charmander! You said you'd been protecting people, yeah? Who'd you protect each night?"
 

IFBench

Rescue Team Member
Location
Pokemon Paradise
Partners
  1. chikorita-saltriv
  2. bench-gen
  3. charmander
  4. snivy
  5. treecko
  6. tropius
  7. arctozolt
  8. wartortle
  9. zorua
"I protected the human with...er, I think his name was Steven? I protected Steven the first two nights, and protected the Espeon last night," Burhalla said, looking over at said human and Pokemon.
 
Top Bottom