if you're still looking for roles: i always loved this one role (forgot the name) that is a vanilla townie yet shows up as guilty if scanned by the cop.

miller

"PE - You say the bloc is a terrible idea...and then you go on to explain how it was misused. lol See the irony. If it was a terrible idea, then the problem wasn't how it was used, as there would be no good use. So fundamentally you agree - the bloc is a tool with uses that were not utilized ; it is not that it is a worthless tool -- this is a significant difference.

the alternative was....radomness, and if you think mafia can't hide just as effectively in randomness, then I *beg* to be mafia next game."

No, you catch mafia by analyzing the difference in incentives between town and mafia, analyzing players' words and actions according to whether they are in line with these incentives, and analyzing players' actions to see if they're consistent with their words. Attempting to gain a consensus lynch without doing these things isn't an alternative to randomness; it IS randomness.

If a town bloc emerges organically from mutual town reads and mutual suspects based on reasoned analysis, fantastic, that's great. But these blocs have to emerge; they can't be imposed from above. Bottom-up blocs are fine, top-down blocs are a shot in the dark.

PE - I still think that if the votes had been moved around, with appropriate discussion, you might have been able to catch mafia resisting certain moves. If the bloc leader settled on a mafia member, and was going to let it ride out, they would do what? Nothing, to stay hidden? Or do something to protest. If nothing, then you get one and can be happy. If they protest, youmight learn something.

It's really no different than not having the bloc EXCEPT what it did for at least a brief period of time was actually *focused* the conversation on the current subject, and reduced the noise in the conversation. Then I moved the vote, and prompted conversation on the next victim.

I think you guys are so focused on the utterly fucked up worthless waste of the bloc that Fasces did, and ignoring how I attempted to use it -- the results in terms of conversation, etc, were night and day. Further, I think you fail to acknowledge that the very conversation about having or not having the block revealed at least one mafia member (Captainmeme) who so viscerally reacted to it that, to me, it outed him.

But yes...it's obviously not a perfect tool, and it is totally time limited in its usefulness, etc etc etc.

As for the bloc being "imposed"....I didn't have the power to impose anything. Every decision, included to join or not join a bloc, and including to talk or not talk once there was a bloc, is the responsibility of the individual. That it gave cover to shitty players who didn't want to have discusssion is unfortunate -- they were still shitty players that didn't want to talk, regardless of the bloc.

Whatever happens next game...I want to be the hooker.

I'm going to stand by my statement that the bloc can help the town if implemented correctly.

There were (at least) 2 problems with the bloc last game:

1) The leaders. Fasces was an absentee leader and krellin was essentially a dirty cop; he just didn't know it. If Ye or Thucy lead the bloc, the mafia would have been in more trouble.

2) The bloc was formed much too early. When krellin formed the bloc, the ratio of townies to mafia was like 3:1 and none of us were suspected. Of course I was going to join that because the chances of picking a mafia were slim. It also didn't make much sense to have a bloc then because the influence of the mafia was limited. If it were implemented later in the game, I think it could have helped the town much more.

Dirty cop? hrumph....just because I liked the way you winked at me?

krellin, you have no idea how happy I was when you suggested the bloc. : )

meh....it still wasn't as bad an idea as people want to say, and it is hardly the reason the town lost. Far worse than the voting bloc was Vanilla Townies that went against the grain and caused themselves to be suspicious.

Let's see, we started out with, whatever 19 people or something...and there are just a few that were consistently in disagreement about things....like "Fasces is guilty"....who just by acting like such anti-group morons set themselves apart and couldn't help but make themselves look guilty.

Far be it from me to say i played perfectly -p clearly I did not, and having never played before I'm sure round 2 will be much different for me -- but I can say for certain that the behavior of vanilla townies that got lynched is far more at fault in our loss than my idea of a bloc.

I agree with you, krellin. Between the townies that barely posted and the townies that put the noose around their own necks, it's actually embarrassing the mafia were so close to losing.

krellin, the problem is that the rationale you and others suggested when you caught the mafia was objectively incorrect. Like I said before, townies are the only players who have any incentive to stop a bloc, because they genuinely feel it's not the best way to catch mafia. captainmeme actually made the *correct* play by opposing it, because it's the townie thing to do; he was "caught" because the town misread his townie play as being mafia-motivated, and coincidentally, captainmeme was mafia.

What I meant by "imposed from above" wasn't meant to imply anything about forcing people in, sorry for the imprecise wording. What I mean is that you can't deliberately arrange a bloc, short of getting innocent scans on people as the cop; nor can you formally declare "we will vote as a bloc." Town circles (another, more common term on the Internet for "town blocs") are effective *after* the players involved prove their innocence to one another and convince one another that a particular player is mafia. Too much of the bloc was "well, we have to maintain the integrity of the bloc, so I vote A player because the bloc wills it" -- which isn't how it's supposed to work. It should be "I want the bloc to vote for A because of XYZXYZYYZ," have some discussion about A, then either decide to kill them or decide against it. Instead it was "I want the bloc to vote for A," sometimes with "because of XYZXYZYYZ," sometimes without, and then several people going "Yeah I'll kill A, the bloc wills it," *even A himself sometimes*.

I'm not sure that we're really disagreeing much, we might be addressing the same issues but just framing them a different way.

not sure how you can be blaming the block on me Krellin, it was your idea I opposed it initially and only participated in the block the one time (that I lead it).

Lol, PlayDip has someone in the game, time to get him murdered #Rivalry

PE, is there any link you can give us to the game, so we can follow along?

Yeah, once it's sent to me I'll post it here! Right now there's just the confirm thread.

Okay, thanks. Any idea when it will start? And any idea on the condensed guide? No pressure, just curious.

Fasces, you **didn't lead**....THAT is why I blame you. Day 1 of the blox was when it had the most power, before the mafia had a night to discuss how to react to it. It was a new, suddent change. You completely and utterly nuetered it. Geesh....not that difficult to figure.

Regardless, blaming the bloc, which was barely used two days, and was never fully implemented as originally suggested, is utterly ridiculous.

"Yeah, once it's sent to me I'll post it here! Right now there's just the confirm thread."

What confirm thread?

I believe he means the thread confirming who will play.

Has it been linked here?

Don't think so, not much of a point when we will find out who is playing when it starts.

Well, I want to play, and I thought the List we have on this thread was final. If I need to confirm my signup on that thread there is a humongous point.

@Gtblx: Oh, you are misunderstanding PE's post. You see he will be playing in a different mafia "Game of Champions" on another site, I was asking about that game, not this one. You are confirmed to play the next one on this as long as you are on the list in this thread.

Oh, thanks. Had a bit of a scare there, but reading back I should have realized the talk wasn't about Mafia II.

That's okay, it happens.

krellin was a trainwreck of a leader. It is astonishing how wrong krellin was throughout the game. abge should count himself lucky krellin.didn't think of lynching him.

If I was a train wreck of a Leader, then it means, by default, **every other player** was a damned Fukishima nuclear disaster of a Leader, since we all had an **equal** opportunity to assume a Leadership role, and they choose to follow me. So if I was a train wreck of a leader, then "train wreck" is the highest praise in the game.

Krellin you're running under the assumption that everyone wanted to be leader

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0ow4X8tiMI