Well, if we figured it out, should we just vote to end?

I'll vote for whomever I find most suspicious. Last game both frontrunners turned out to be Town, but it also gave the Town information by which Dresden determined Vashta to be Town in the endgame.

Knowing that someone will be lynched also changes the nature of the dialogue. Having a vote ready to be cast or on someone gives more weight to everyones arguments and cast votes give a concrete record on peoples views. I don't view a nolynch vote as being indicative of Mafia, but if someone is about to be lynched everyone should vote to reduce Mafia influence.

I have to remember to refresh the thread before posting, a full page came up while I was writing.

Until ghug responds to my questioning at what point it becomes "reasonable" to lynch people: ##VOTE ghug

Gtlblx - I tend to agree, that a lot of times people didn't want to vote, waited to vote, etc...which makes it very difficult to assess them, for good OR ill. People should really commit to at least casting some vote early so we can get a gauge on where we stand, and force the person to defend themselves, as well as force people to tell us why they voted the way they did. NON-voting behavior is not instructive to anyone...and (I know this will get me in trouble, but it's consistent with my past behavior) non-voting *does* make you more suspicious than not (imo)

Well, if remember correctly, last time all the no lynch voters
were town. The only reason the mafia would not want to lynch would be if one of their members was targeted. However, we should definitely discuss lynching someone, as there is very little to drive conversation with. As for a first day lynch, I propose a man who while good intentioned, helped the mafia by fully trusting one of its members. ##votekrellin.

So I went out and played with the dog. I'm glad to see everyone talking.

Re: no lynch,
To clarify, since we have no information during the first turn. If our digging and questioning hasn't revealed any suspicious behaviour, we have a high likelyhood of lynching a townie. Not only are there more of us, but the mafia will also be trying to mislead us. After the first night lynch by the mafia we now know that one of our fellows was innocent, and the mafia considered him worthy of death. Both valuable pieces of information. In contrast if we kill an innocent on the first turn, we now know two of our fellows were innocent, the mafia wanted one of them dead. And for the other we have little useful information. If our chances of lynching a mafia member go up. (Because they are acting suspicious) I'm willing to make that gamble.

re: talking at night. I think this is rightfully a contentious issue. Because it relies on giving the mafia more information. Namely it tells them how the town is thinking for the next phase. Which allows them to target their nightkill to try and skew the voting the way they want it to go. I think because it gives them this information, and influences their nightkill is why it is useful to the town, because it allows the town insight into why the mafia are nightkilling the way they are. With that said. Its a risky stratagem, if the consensus is that it is too risky. I will follow the rest of the town.

Re suspicion ranking: It was an idea that never really caught on last game. Essentially you might rank the people you are suspicious of from most to least suspicious. It allows us to tally up suspicions to see what the reads of the whole town are pointing towards

I'll confess that my mafia experience is limited, so I'd prefer to defer to people with more experience on that one. It seems to me that it's better for the town to do something than nothing, so I wouldn't set that bar too high, but we also don't want to just kill people for fun.

Vash - give me a fucking break. It's a new game, god damnit. Lynching me because of what happened last game? Why don't you take ownership of your OWn fucking mistakes last game. Or are you just casting this vote because you know it's "safe"....?

Asshole.

damian - we DO have information already. We have people feeling safe at casting votes with *zero* information. That, to me, is some fucking information.

I am going to do my best to track suspicion trees. While these will generally be aligned with how people are voting, they will more reflect general discourse to get the whole picture that straight-up votes might not get.

y2kjbk -> ghug
vashta -> krellin
slyguy -> damian

This is true Krellin. Nobody has made votes when I wrote the post though. I was uber ninja'd.

On a related note.
Suspicious: Slyguy270 - quick vote day 1, with no reason given? Just voting without explaining why is never good for the town. We need all the information we can get

Krellin, the only info we have as players is what happened last game. Besides, I could just as easily change my vote, it is not like there won't be other people worthy of voting for. My vote and voice are all I can use, so why not use them early on?

ghug, I appreciate how you being new could result in an inclination to not want to lynch anyone on day 1, since we have no information. In order to start getting information though, we don't just want to start letting the mafia kill off people. That doesn't give us much at all to reliably go on. It's the lynches that leave solid paper trails that will be crucial down the road for ID'ing mafia.

As a mathy person, this whole premise of the town learning from the mafia night kills, while probably in some sense true, really hits me the wrong way. If the town actually was gaining all this information from the nightkills, then mafia should just kill randomly. If we assume a rational mafia, it hurts us more to lose a player in the night round than the information we gain from that kill.

To be clear, the above doesn't say that we shouldn't try to figure things out from the night kills- of course we should! What it says is that the way that night kills become useful is from the pressure we apply on the mafia during the day.

I'm hoping not to post again about whether we should have a day 1 kill or not. It seems super obvious to me that we should. I want to get into actually casting some votes and calling people liars.

Vashta - game 1 have **nothing** to do with this game. Good lord. The only thing I know about you right now is that, magically, with zero information, you feel safe voting for me. Meanging one of two things:

1. Vashta is a fool making wild-ass (and dangerous) guesses with no information (dangerous for the town)
2. Vastha is voting based upon some information he has, and is trying to slip an early vote in under the radar using the ploy that it is related to last game, and not upon whatever knowledge he currently (ALREADY!) possesses.

Ghug, try reading PE's how to guide. Also, do not simply defer, any information added will help the town. You may be wrong, but the same is try for any townie. The town must take action, force the mafia to react, rather than the other way around.

Vash...might I point out, you insisted for *days* that a Doc cleared townie - Fasces - was mafia last game. So if you want to talk about errors in judgement...

@krellin- I don't agree that an early vote is dangerous or anything like that. I think it's useful it gets discussion going.

On that note, to me the most suspicious person so far is ##VOTE damian, probably followed by Vashta, but I'm sure that will change as more people get talking.

What I can guarantee, though, is if as we approach the end of day 1 of the game and there is someone who hasn't made a substantive post to give us all something to read, I will certainly vote for them. This isn't even necessarily because I think that is the behavior of mafia as much as I think that the key to us winning as town is to get everyone talking.

@uclabb. As someone who doesn't naturally see the mathematics of mafia (I've only played twice...and no lynch wasn't an option in either of those games) I really only have my own intuition to go off. My intuition says not killing people will help the town, for the reasons I have outlined above. If you have a mathematical explanation I'd be more than happy to listen to it.

Re time zones: I'm GMT -6, also I work full time and don't have webdip access at work, (I have today off), so I'll only be active evenings and weekends.

Krellin, I voted you to get a reaction, much like you have done countless times. Last time you (and me as well) hindered the town as town members, I do not want that to happen again. Someone else may be more suspicious, this is but a preliminary vote.

@damian- my post 26 minutes after the game started gives the logic (= math) behind a first day lynch, if you want to check it out.

Vahs...yeah....whatever. Nice (attempted) recovery. Stupid...or Insider Knowledge. That's all I have to say about you.

There is a difference in voting based upon discussion in THIS game, versus just a random vote. It's actually quite brilliant to use whatever knowledge you ALREADY possess to accuse me immediately, and then say it was based upon the last game, and try to drum up a mob against me. Brilliant!

<slow clap>

Ok. Various points I need to make....

Firstly I am literally writing this at the boarding gate in Heathrow before I get on a plane to Kuala Lumpur for 12hrs followed by another 10hr plane to Auckland. There is a stopover where I will be catching up but can I second the notion that we don't just lynch someone quiet on day 1 as that may well be me!

Secondly - Vash - let the last game go. Krellin let's cut a deal here, I'll be more active this time, you won't totally lynch another townie for just being quiet? I was lynched by a big majority and I was purely vanilla town. Let's not make the same bloody mistakes alright?

Finally - on the lynch/no lynch - why wouldn't we? The only way we get information and start to bring the disparity down is by the night info. Surely if we don't kill anyone, we learn nothing and it's all about gaining the info.

I'll freely admit I wasn't the greatest townie last time, (it was my first ever game) but my aim is to be a lot more involved now I've learnt a bit.

Krellin, given how chaotic you were last time, and how you are currently acting almost the same way this time, I do not see how me wanting to kill you makes me seem mafia. Your chaos hurt the town, so the mafia kept you alive, why would they want to do something different this time.

PJ - sounds reasonable. Believe it or not, stubborn old assclown krellin is a learning being, and I shall endeavor to do better.

Vash - wait...how am I behaving now? You voted for me based upon a previous game, and I gave two completely logical reasons for why you would do so. If using logic is unreasonable, then I am guilty.

I admit I was chaotic last game. It was my first game, and I intend to play this one differently. You, on the other hand, do not seem to have learned any lessons, from my initial impression. You say I was chaotic....and then, in a PURELY chaotic move...you cast a vote on me based upon a DIFFERENT game. The very definition of chaotic...or one with insider info trying to quick-link to last game and get his first kill.

Point I'm making as well. Totally opposite to Uclabb. Just cos someone is a little quieter doesn't make them scummy. I really don't like using that as an assumption.

I also think zero point in putting in a vote now - what the hell are we judging on? Krellin for my lynched last game I'm not going to be holding that against him, exactly as if I'm playing Dip, you don't target someone cos they screwed you last game, you target them cos they're fishy. (Don't for one minute think I wouldn't like to put rope around his neck myself if I thought he was mafia) but sure as hell not voting this early. We lost last time because we were too quick to kill the townies off ourselves , I won't make same mistake again.

@uclabb. Probably just be being a bit thick. But I didn't understand that post. Do you think you could rephrase the logic? I'd appreciate it.