Crossfire - The Showdown (Raxxon [Blue Team] + Bystander Win)

[Gopher of Pern]

The Intel is solid. Raxxon will be transporting a VIP through a sector heavy with civilian traffic. This makes the mission a tricky one. You’ll be working alone as they try to throw you off their tail. Don’t be fooled. You need to get in and get the job done, before the chance passes by. Just be sure to not get caught in the crossfire.

(Stolen from the website)

Standard Rules (minus ones that do not apply):

Spoiler:

1. Do not talk about the game outside of this thread, apart from a properly labeled spoiler in the discussion thread.
2. Please stay on topic at all times.
3. Lurking is frowned upon; if you need to drop out, please let me know as soon as possible. If someone feels that another player isn't contributing to game play, please make me aware. Modkills will be handed out if replacement cannot be found without regard to balance.
4. If you aren't part of this game, please do not post in the thread.
5. Once it is nighttime, do not post in the thread.
6. You may not quote the contents of any PM related to this game, but you can paraphrase.
7. If you have been killed in game, don't say anything for the rest of the game except a simple, "Bah, you got me," which reveals no information. Or something along those lines, without giving out any information or hints to anyone still playing.
8. You may not edit your posts unless explicitly told to do so by the mod (which is not in any way expected to happen).
9. You cannot ruin the game for other players.
10. You must play to achieve your win condition.
11. Please make an effort to include me on all PMs. Mistakes happen but make me aware if they do.
12. All votes must be bolded and on a separate line. Unvotes are preferred but not required. If I miss something, let me know.

Game Rules:

1) You will all be dealt one card. This card will be referred to in your role pm as your initial card. This card will have one of the below roles on it.
2) You will all pass this card to the person below you on the list. The card passed to you will be referred to as the passed card.
3) Groups of cards will then be shuffled and redistributed. The card you receive from this will be your role card. This card tells you your win conditions, and if you are 'armed'.
4)The cards will be shuffled in the following order, according to their position: 1, 2 and 5 are shuffled and redistributed, then 3, 4 and 5 are shuffled and redistributed.
5) Your first post in the game should include a role claim. You should claim one of the following: VIP, Bystander, Agent, or Undeclared. You are free to change this claim at any time.
6) You have until deadline to discuss everyone's roles, and what cards you saw.
7) Before deadline, you must pm the mod with a target, even if you are unarmed. You can change this at anytime up until deadline.
8) After deadline, I will announce who everyone's targets are. Any Agents fire their weapons first, shooting their targets. Assassins, if they have not been shot, then fire their weapons, shooting their targets.
9) If the VIP is not shot, the Blue team wins. If the VIP is shot, the Red team wins. If the bystander is alive, they win. If the neutral decoy is dead, they win. If the bystander is shot, the person who shot the bystander also loses.
10) The Blue team consists of the VIP, Agent, and Blue Decoy roles. The Red team consists of the Assassin and Red Decoy roles.

The roles and their win conditions for this game are:

Spoiler:

VIP - You win if you are not shot. You are part of the blue team. You are not armed.

Agent - You win if the VIP is not shot. You are part of the blue team. You are armed.

Assassin - You win if the VIP is shot. You are part of the red team. You are armed.

Red Decoy - You win if the VIP is shot. You are part of the red team. You are not armed.

Bystander - You win if you are not shot. If you are shot, both you and the person who shot you lose.

Players:
1. Sabrar
2. Dimochka
3. Carlington
4. Madge
5. mpolo

The full rules can be found here.

If anything is not clear, please feel free to pm me, or post a question in bold in the thread.

Your role pm's will be released shortly.

Some strategy hints from the rulebook:

Spoiler:

To win Crossfire, use your investigative instincts. Your first clue is the roles other players are claiming to be. If too many players claim the same role, someone is lying. Your second clue is the cards you saw during set-up. Do the players to your left and right say they saw the same cards that you saw? If so, perhaps you have found allies. If not, you may want to point your gun in their direction. Each player has valuable information - if you can put the pieces together. For your first game, consider asking each player to declare what she saw during set-up and see what happens.

You also need to use social deduction to win. Who is talking straight, and who is lying to your face? When should you lie? Some roles need to conceal their identities, while others seek the truth. Look your fellow players in the eyes and learn their secrets.

[Gopher of Pern]

Your role pm's have been sent out.

Please confirm that you have received them, and your initial claim in thread. Do not post any discussion until everyone has confirmed.

After everyone had completed the initial confirmation and claim, you are free to discuss whatever you want.


*edit*
To reiterate the shuffling process:

The passed cards of Sabrar, Dimochka and mpolo were shuffled together, and then dealt out to those three. Then the passed cards of Carlington and Madge, and the redealt card of mpolo, were shuffled together, and dealt out.

If anything is not clear, please say so.

[mpolo]

I have received my pm.

Claim: Bystander

[Madge]

Got my PM

Claim: Undeclared

[Sabrar]

Got my PM.

Claim: VIP

[Carlington]

Role received

Claim: Agent

[dimochka]

PM Received

Claim Assassin.

Because why not.

I sent a couple of questions to the mod, will revert here once they're answered and once i'm at work in a few hours.

[Sabrar]

Vote: dimochka

for going against the rules and claiming a role that was not allowed according to point 5)

Some preliminary thoughts about the setup:

Spoiler:

There is a big asymmetry about information known to players: whatever card dimochka and Carlington received originally, that role can never be assigned to dimochka or myself (passed down to position 3 and 4 respectively, cannot be part of the first shuffle).
Therefore Carlington knows at least 2 of the roles among {Carlington, Madge, mpolo} and he might know all 3 of them (if he received a third role). dimochka knows exactly 1 such role, Madge might know 1 (if she didn't receive the role that was passed to her).
mpolo and myself have no such information as any roles we saw might have been shuffled to mpolo first and then redistributed again. The best we can infer is that from the 2 roles we saw at most 1 could have gone to the above group.

And some personal opinion:

Spoiler:

Easiest role to win with: Bystander
By the end it should be easy to determine who is not looking for any connections and just wants to remain safe (although VIP and possibly Assassin might pretend to be Bystander as well).

Most frustrating role to play: Decoy
Your win condition depends entirely on your (unknown) teammate

[Sabrar]

EBWOP: and big thanks to Gopher of Pern for saving me from total boredom at work.

[dimochka]

Oh sorry. Claim bystander. Teaches me to read rules.

[Sabrar]

Why so serious?
(if you skipped that part of the rules as well, there's no voting in this game)

[dimochka]

Because it was way too early in the morning and I saw that I broke the rules so I quickly fixed it!

on that note, Vote Sabrar, (and I did not miss that part of the rules!)

So what I'm trying to figure out is - is it beneficial or detrimental for us to claim which cards we saw immediately? Mpolo clearly has more information than most of us would (in a way, he's holding all the cards ). I'll try to outline some of this on paper before I post, just so it's not a jumbled mess, but anyone is welcome to jump in.

[Sabrar]

As outlined above I don't think that mpolo has more information, because if I understand the rules correctly he would not know which card he received after the first shuffle.

[Sabrar]

EBWOP: I stand corrected, due to his position he might have an additional piece of info if he received back one of the cards he saw.

[mpolo]

I'm not really sure how to approach this. I don't think that I have much information at all after the shuffling, but I'm going to read through the rules again.

[Sabrar]

@mpolo: you saw 2 roles before the shuffle, let's call them A and B. If your actual role is A then you know that either dimochka or myself have to be B. Similarly if you're B then one of us has to be A. If your actual role is C then you have little info at this point.

[dimochka]

are we still in pregame or can we start?

[Sabrar]

After everyone had completed the initial confirmation and claim, you are free to discuss whatever you want.

Talk away.

[Gopher of Pern]

The Game is on.

Mpolo only knows what card they got at the end of both shufflings. They do not know which card they got between shufflings.

[Madge]

I am so confused (which is why I am still unclaimed...). I'm going to need, like, a diagram or something so I know where the cards I saw could possibly be. Bit busy at work at the moment but I might try and squirrel away some time over lunch or when I get home to do a diagram.

[Sabrar]

@Madge: the card you were passed by Carlington was only shuffled once, if you don't have it then it's 50-50 to be with Carlington or mpolo.
The card you originally received (and passed to mpolo) might have been shuffled twice, if you don't have it then it's either by dimochka/myself with 33-33% chance, or by Carlington/mpolo with 17-17% chance.

@Carlington: hi there! Anything you want to say?

[Madge]

All of my cards (dealt, passed, role) are different. So I know a lot of things! That's great!

Basically Carlington/Mpolo either have my "passed card" and Dim/Sabrar(less likely:carlington/mpolo) have my dealt card?

[Sabrar]

You've got it right, assuming of course that you're not lying to us.

[Madge]

I don't know enough to lie!!

Claims:
mpolo: bystander
madge: undeclared
sabrar: vip
carlington: agent
dimochka: assassin ("because why not")

So.... none of calington/mpolo claims matches up with my "passed card"

someone in dim/sabrar/carlington/mpolo (i.e. everyone else) does have a claim that maches my "dealt card"

[Sabrar]

I don't think you should put too much thought into the original claims, Assassin has absolutely no reason to be truthful (unless running a double-bluff) and VIP should only claim if that helps the Agent to pinpoint the Assassin (which is totally not the case at the start of the game).
To be honest I don't see how any claims in this game can be taken seriously, unless someone 'promises' to make no more claims after that ever.

[Madge]

you can take my undeclared claim VERY seriously.

I'm offering some info (but not too much ob) because I figure information can only help us, right?

[Sabrar]

Define us.

It's a 2-2-1 setup, so there is no Town, there is no scum. Based purely on random chance it's unlikely that we're even on the same team.

[mpolo]

The two cards I saw are not the card that I received, if that helps calculate this any. Which means that I know that some cards are arbitrarily far away from me, that they exist, and that I don't have them, I think.

[Sabrar]

Well, at least one of the cards you saw must be with dimochka or myself (it could be both but no way to figure this out yet).

[Madge]

us is my team of course, whatever that may be

for reals though sabrar, if my logic is sound, I think we could be on the same team. I also think my logic is very likely un-sound given the small amount of information at my disposal.

[Carlington]

Okay so I am also a little unclear - the rules say you'll pass a card to the next player on your list, and I'm struggling to interpret that. Would I have been passed a card by dimochka, by mpolo, or have I just completely misunderstood?

[Sabrar]

Didn't notice the wording, just assumed that we pass according to the sign-up list as that is the only list I could think of. You would have passed your card to Madge and received one from dimochka if the above is correct.

[Gopher of Pern]

Apologies, it meant to say 'the' list.

So your passed card would have been Dimochka's dealt card, and your dealt card would be Madge's passed card.

Ninja'd, but I'll leave it here. The original post has been changed.

[Sabrar]

for reals though sabrar, if my logic is sound, I think we could be on the same team. I also think my logic is very likely un-sound given the small amount of information at my disposal.

Could be, I don't know what you know.

I've thought a bit on how to phrase my info as to not to reveal too much:
Between my original, passed and final role I saw at least 1 of the 2 kill-targets (VIP, Assassin).

[Carlington]

Exactly one of the cards Madge saw ended up with either Sabrar or dimochka.

[Sabrar]

Interesting...
Can't be Madge's final card (obviously). Can't be the card you passed to her (physically impossible). So you're saying that the card she saw originally (which you theoretically don't know what it was) ended up by either dimochka or myself and wasn't reshuffled in the second part.
Madge and mpolo claim to not getting it back (both claim that their final role is different from both of their previously seen cards and both would have seen it).
Now why are you sure that it couldn't have been you who got it at the end? It can only be because you claim to have received back one of the cards that you saw before the shuffles.
Is this correct?

[Carlington]

Elementary.

In addition, your claim to have seen at least one of the two kill targets told me less than I had already been able to deduce.

[Sabrar]

In addition, your claim to have seen at least one of the two kill targets told me less than I had already been able to deduce.

That might be true from your pov but as analysed above you are in a unique position when it comes to info. Others might find it more useful.

[Carlington]

Yes, but I believe that there's also new information in that I already know that you saw at least one kill target.

[Sabrar]

True, that's the next level of the puzzle. I'll try to tackle this tomorrow, need to think through the best way to structure my database (fancy word for an Excel sheet).