Mafia XL - A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

[Foxcastle]

##GM NOTE: 2 hours and 30 minutes remain in Night 1

[yavuzovic]

RHK or damo
Not both

[xorxes]

'3 use driver tho' is calling it OP - so I don't think it's fair to classify my observations like that. Lawyer is only better if the scum team is lucky, it could also be worse.

I can't believe you still want to argue this.

You said the setup could be more balanced. That means you thought it's at least slightly unbalanced. And the way you thought would help balance it out was to weaken the Observer and upgrade Godfather to Lawyer. Isn't the Lawyer just a way for Mafia to choose who their Godfather is at any point instead of being stuck with whoever it is? How could that be worse? And if it's worse, how would it help balance a setup that is presumably townsided?

So yes, I maintain that your observation was a slight complaint from the mafia POV, the reverse of Jamiet's which was a complaint from the town's perspective.

Does this mean you're scum and Jamiet was town? No, it could mean nothing. It's just one datapoint.

[bozotheclown]

I find the following the most suspicious so far:

damo: I do not agree with Balki’s defense of damo that he was not trying to blend in, I think he was trying to blend in with his votes, and whenever his vote received any kind of criticism, he moved his vote or unvoted.

peterlund: His few posts contained little meaningful content until he was temporarily the top wagon, then he posted a reads list where he scum read everyone voting for him and voted for his top counterwagon. However, that vote was for damo, so if peterlund is scum I think it makes it less likely damo is scum.

DrCJG: First, he brings up his own lurking:

Also... why am I mentioned in only one lurker/"join the game" post Doesn't anyone miss me...

Then, he discusses his own meta, saying he does not lurk as mafia:

By contrast though, I would actually bet scum are more likely to avoid being a light poster D1... at least I have found that when I am scum I tend to want to constantly be in the conversation sometimes pushing it sometimes riding the coat tails but rarely wanting to draw attention as someone not working to solve.

Later, he uses this to defend himself:

haha, I finally got my first OMGUS moment... why does my abnormal amount of lurking this game make you think I am more likely scum rather than 1) A different alignment; or 2) Busier at the start of this game.

It seems like he deliberately attempted a different strategy as scum, then tried to subtly point out that his lurking makes him likely town when no one else came to that conclusion first.

[ghug]

Some thoughts on ghug...

I find him generally sound and townie, except for two things that rubbed me the wrong way:

(1) The case on Ike. I can't really make sense of a scum sticking their neck out just to rile Jamiet up. The alternative explanation that Ike was just presenting the "facts" in as favorable a light to himself as possible seems so obvious that I don't know why ghug would ignore it.

(2) The way he said people were scumreading me for the wrong reasons was kind of true but kind of weird as well. The "right" reason was supposedly that I was too defensive, presumably when I said this to Squigs: "How am I being loud? If anything, high participation for me correlates with being town, although as scum I can usually fake enough to survive first day lynch." That's the only thing remotely defensive I could find. But the interesting part is that later ghug had a back and forth with Squigs in which he was way more defensive than I had been.

I don't think that's enough for even a slight scumlean at this point, especially because I think Squigs is more scummy, but that's what I have on ghug so far.

On the Ike point, you'll remember that I didn't give it a ton of credence in my initial post. I pressed him on it and was ultimately satisfied with his answers. The Ike covering his ass bit was always possible, but I didn't see much use in stating it explicitly before questioning him. Riling Jamie up is absolutely something I've done as scum.

As for the defensiveness, I think it was worth pressing. Instead people were pressing dumb crap that wasn't. My defensiveness with Squigs was far more substantive, and allowed me to learn some things about Squigs in the process (I lean a bit town on him now). Yours was a response to some offhand "xorxes is talking too much" comment in the first few pages, which seemed like an odd thing to care about.


Durga, can you give me a similar overview of your thought processes immediately before and after EoD.

[ghug]

?*

[Durga]

'3 use driver tho' is calling it OP - so I don't think it's fair to classify my observations like that. Lawyer is only better if the scum team is lucky, it could also be worse.

I can't believe you still want to argue this.

You said the setup could be more balanced. That means you thought it's at least slightly unbalanced. And the way you thought would help balance it out was to weaken the Observer and upgrade Godfather to Lawyer. Isn't the Lawyer just a way for Mafia to choose who their Godfather is at any point instead of being stuck with whoever it is? How could that be worse? And if it's worse, how would it help balance a setup that is presumably townsided?

So yes, I maintain that your observation was a slight complaint from the mafia POV, the reverse of Jamiet's which was a complaint from the town's perspective.

Does this mean you're scum and Jamiet was town? No, it could mean nothing. It's just one datapoint.

Those are the two particular roles that I think can be better balanced out. I just don't like the godfather as a role, and I think the observer role has too much power. The driver definitely has the potential to make this scum sided. I didn't make any overall assessment on whether it was town sided or not. I don't want to continue this, you brought it up and you're wrong on your observation. And now you're continuing it. The driver pretty much guarantees they're going to have 3 confirmed kills - I can't remember if there is a doc but if there is they are functionally useless until the driver power is used up.

Don't miss classify me because you think I'm saying something that I'm not and then whine about me still 'continuing' this discussion.

[Durga]

@ghug I was in a call until I started posting, saw people voting for thdfrance, no one was telling me why thdfrance was scummy, i remember the few posts i read of damo's that were defensive and bad (his focusing on only what people thought of him), i remember your shitty post on thd not remembering who he previously scum or town read (which is really not scum indicative), i remember balki rubbing me the wrong way - his statement asking thd to list his scum reads is one of those statements where he's trying so hard to be useful but really it just shows that he knew he would flip town... yeah that's what i recall.


damo hasn't said shit all night. i think he's still scum. i think it's likely balki is scum. i think bozo is town.

[xorxes]

Those are the two particular roles that I think can be better balanced out. I just don't like the godfather as a role, and I think the observer role has too much power. The driver definitely has the potential to make this scum sided. I didn't make any overall assessment on whether it was town sided or not. I don't want to continue this, you brought it up and you're wrong on your observation. And now you're continuing it. The driver pretty much guarantees they're going to have 3 confirmed kills - I can't remember if there is a doc but if there is they are functionally useless until the driver power is used up.

Don't miss classify me because you think I'm saying something that I'm not and then whine about me still 'continuing' this discussion.

OK, I don't think you can talk about "balancing a role" as opposed to "balancing a setup" (any PR will be unbalanced by itself by definition, otherwise they wouldn't be a PR) but I accept your explanation.

[Durga]

Those are the two particular roles that I think can be better balanced out. I just don't like the godfather as a role, and I think the observer role has too much power. The driver definitely has the potential to make this scum sided. I didn't make any overall assessment on whether it was town sided or not. I don't want to continue this, you brought it up and you're wrong on your observation. And now you're continuing it. The driver pretty much guarantees they're going to have 3 confirmed kills - I can't remember if there is a doc but if there is they are functionally useless until the driver power is used up.

Don't miss classify me because you think I'm saying something that I'm not and then whine about me still 'continuing' this discussion.

OK, I don't think you can talk about "balancing a role" as opposed to "balancing a setup" (any PR will be unbalanced by itself by definition, otherwise they wouldn't be a PR) but I accept your explanation.

Yes you can - some roles are OP some are not. The point is I didn't give an overall assessment, and if you factored in the driver comment you can get a better overall picture of my thoughts. You actively chose to remove it to justify your pov

[xorxes]

Yours was a response to some offhand "xorxes is talking too much" comment in the first few pages, which seemed like an odd thing to care about.

No, he said "louder", and I wanted to know whatever he meant by that.

[xorxes]

OK, I don't think you can talk about "balancing a role" as opposed to "balancing a setup" (any PR will be unbalanced by itself by definition, otherwise they wouldn't be a PR) but I accept your explanation.

Yes you can - some roles are OP some are not. The point is I didn't give an overall assessment, and if you factored in the driver comment you can get a better overall picture of my thoughts. You actively chose to remove it to justify your pov

You could balance an OP role on one side by an OP role on the other.

I know the final comment about the driver suggested you thought it might be balanced after all, but it came as an afterthought.

The whole thing still looks weird: either a Mafia complaint or a detached and unbiased analysis of the setup, which it's hard to do when you're one of the interested parties. But it's possible that's all it was.

[Durga]

"You could balance an OP role on one side by an OP role on the other. "

Not if your OP role gets lynched d1 and the other side still has theirs. That is why it is better to just have balanced roles on all ends.

[ND]

So I did a cursory re-read of EOD#1. Here are my findings:

1. Ghug basically starts the thdfrance wagon during Eod at the time DemonRHK and damo666 were the leading wagons. After Ghug starts the wagon and he says this when he starts it: “Can anyone look at thd and honestly claim he doesn't exude awkward scumminess?” all of Vecna, Tom and Ike immediately vote it in rapid succession bumping it up to a contending wagon with Damo and Demon. Should be noted here that Ghug doesn’t really have a case nor do the people who initially fuel the wagon. It’s just a, he’s scummy, and thus the wagon formation is suspect. As in, the wagon formation does not have town aligned motivation behind it. It’s a flash-grown-wagon designed to compete against the other two and confuse the voting pool.

2. Balki comes across as heavily suspect EOD1 for not only voting thdfrance, but also for doing everything he can to discredit the Damo wagon. It’s obvious that he did not want that to succeed and he was successful. Strangely, both Balki and DrCJG ask Thd for his thoughts before he dies. Why ask someone who you are voting for and believe to be scum for their scum reads? I can’t stress this enough and it reinforces point 1) there are non-town motivations at work here.

3. Should be pointed out that Balki isn’t the only one to defend Damo during the day. Tom also is a big defender of Damo. On what grounds? The case against him isn’t dismissable. It’s basically, ‘oh he’s town’.

4. ThdFrance says something which is something i’ve come back to several times, “I think Demon or Damo could be scum...but I don't think I've ever seen someone who was scum pull the self vote act. Last time I think I saw that was when Maniac did it in one of the early mafia games.” it’s a good point. Although, it’s definitely not impossible and Damo didn’t end on himself. He ended up voting for thd which is what I knew he would do. Some may say that is ‘town survival’, but it’s also scum survival. There is no way to glean alignment from that move. Could be either or. His other point is that he believes DemonRHK or Damo could be scum. I’m inclined to agree. DemonRHK is not looking good. What does he do EOD he goes back to voting yav for his ‘scum slip’. Yav didn’t scum slip. He is not a native english speaker and DemonRHK knows that. He was trying to find something to latch onto and tunnel and he did and while he was pushed and made a wagon it didn’t stick.

5. Flash enters the game during EOD and replaces Jamie. My spat with Jamie at the beginning of the game was not for fun. I was feeling him out. Scum Jamie is usually easy to spot. I think we were dealing with Scum Jamie, but I’m not 100% sold just yet. I thought we were and I thought the faux outrage was just that. When he came back it kind of confirmed my suspicions. Basically he picked a fight with the GMs, overly looked at mechanics, tunnelled me. These are all things I would expect Scum Jamie to do. He was doing things to make himself look active but not really engaging in the game in a significant way. He was playing over the top. It didn’t feel organic. When Flash comes in he just so happens to vote Thd which becomes the biggest wagon for.. Reasons. Just so happens to vote the inorganic wagon with no case to compete against DemonRHK and Damo. For reasons unexplained to us all. Righht.


In conclusion, I think we can narrow this down. The suspect pool is greatly reduced:
-Ghug and then rapid succession votes of Vecna, Ike, and Tom.
-DemonRHK and or Damo
-Flash/Jamie
-Balki and potentially DrCJG

I think that the Town vote was mostly split along Damo and DemonRHK. I think the scum pooled on Thdfrance and that it was heavily scum motivated wagon with a few town players that got lumped in. I think that Thd’s reads of Ghug and DemonRHK or Damo are good leads to follow. I intend to follow them. Now, that being said, I believe that we should concentrate on this suspect pool going into Day 2. That’s what I plan to do. All of them can’t be scum, but I would wager that the scum team is hiding in this pool of players with maybe a wildcard exception like Szpoti which can’t be ruled out.

I won’t be around for EON. Got stuff to do.

[xorxes]

Rereading Squigs I found him mostly townish, so I retract my comment about him being scummy.

So I have some town vibes from: damo, rivera, bozo, Balki, bo_sox, Squigs, worcej, Vecna, Durga, ghug.

No strong scum vibes from anyone, but POE leaves: RHK, DrCJG, Foxcastle, ND, peter, Ike, Szpoti, Tom, Yavu.

[yavuzovic]

Durga and Xorxes talk about scum PRs for a long time. I realised I haven't ever remember about those. I will make another psychological read here. If you're talking about something too much, this means you are interested in this and you probably have a relation to it. I will guess there's a (scum) PR among Durga and Xorxes.
This case hasn't a point if they're just calculating the night possibilities.

[yavuzovic]

I will not be here at EoN, even though very little time remained. I will continue from here tomorrow, I hope I don't die.

[RagingIke297]

Rereading Squigs I found him mostly townish, so I retract my comment about him being scummy.

So I have some town vibes from: damo, rivera, bozo, Balki, bo_sox, Squigs, worcej, Vecna, Durga, ghug.

No strong scum vibes from anyone, but POE leaves: RHK, DrCJG, Foxcastle, ND, peter, Ike, Szpoti, Tom, Yavu.

Someone's not paying attention

[Durga]

Durga and Xorxes talk about scum PRs for a long time. I realised I haven't ever remember about those. I will make another psychological read here. If you're talking about something too much, this means you are interested in this and you probably have a relation to it. I will guess there's a (scum) PR among Durga and Xorxes.
This case hasn't a point if they're just calculating the night possibilities.

If this was true, why wouldn't we do this with our teammates instead of on the main thread? :p

[rdrivera2005]

Sorry guys, this weekend we have Elections here in Brasil and I am working on it, so I will be mostly offline until Sunday night.
In case scum is stupid enough to NK me, take a look at Demon, Squigs or Ike.