Zombie Apocalypse - Game Over: SK (T1mm) Wins

[Adam H]

Zombies are swarming the safehouse! We have plenty of guns, ammo, and manpower to hold them off, but food is growing scarce. Will we stand strong, united against the horde? Or will we turn against each other in an attempt to conserve our food and water?

Sign up for Boomfrog's World Famous Underworld game in the sign-up thread - when you die here, you'll be sent to the Underworld for another round of mafia madness!

How to play mafia (taken from this thread):

Spoiler:

There are 2 teams. Townies and Mafia.

TOWNIES
The townies have no power besides the power of deduction. The Townie wants to rid the town of the mafia scum. Every day the townie can vote for one person by posting Vote:Person x (note that this must be bolded) if you later decide to switch your vote, you do so by typing UNVOTE vote:person y (note again that this must be bolded). Townies do not know who anyone else are.

MAFIA
The mafia's team usually is about one third the size of the townies. The mafia know who each other are, and try to blend in with the townies. Their goal is to rid the town of all the townies. They can vote and unvote just like normal townies. The only difference is that at night time the mafia can communicate (via pm's to eachother) and between all of the mafia, they can decide to kill someone at night.

VOTING
Now you may be wondering what this voting does. When a player has MORE than half the votes, they are lynched. Right after the lynching happens, it becomes night time.
The town wins when the last mafia member is wiped out. The mafia win when they control HALF of the votes.

Standard xkcd forum rules:

Spoiler:

1. Do not talk about the game outside this thread, unless you spoiler it in the discussion thread.
2. Votes and questions must be posted in bold and on a new line, like so:

Vote: Adam H

You can also ask me questions in PM.
3. You’re dead when I say you’re dead. Don’t say anything in this thread for the rest of the game, and feel free to read all the spoilers in the discussion thread – you ain’t coming back.
4. No editing your posts. Never! No matter what!
5. No playing to lose. This won’t be tolerated.
6. All PMs must be CC’d to me.

Slightly more specific rules:

Spoiler:

7. You must post at least once per week (but more=better). Let me know if someone is lurking and I will take care of it.
8. It is nighttime when I say it's nighttime, and it's daytime when I say it's daytime. I will let you know well beforehand when the deadlines are. When the deadline passes, the day is over and there will be NO talking. I will be along with the day-ending post soon after the deadline has been reached.
9. If someone hammers (places a vote which gives the player a majority of votes), daytime is immediately over. NO more talking, even if the hammer-vote was accidental.
10. If deadline is reached without a majority decision, then the person with the most votes is lynched. If the votals are tied, then I will randomly select one of the tied players to be lynched. If exactly half of the players vote for one player and the other half vote for another player, there will be no lynch.
11. You can vote to "NL" (no lynch). If "NL" gets the majority of the votes, no one will be lynched.
12. Don't post any content in this thread at night.
13. Members of the mafia can PM each other only at night - never during the day. Townies can NEVER PM ANYONE.

To reiterate the most important rules for the newbies: NO talking about the game except in a spoiler in the discussion thread. NO reading those spoilers unless you are out of the game. NO editing your posts. NO pms unless you are mafia.

Player List:
fearless Vanilla Town, lynched D1
Misnomer Mafia, killed N1 (by SK)
trineroks Town Doctor, killed N1 (by Mafia)
Eculc Vanilla Town, lynched D2
greenlover Vanilla Town, killed N2 (by SK)
TheMaskedGecko Vanilla Town, killed N2 (by Mafia)
Woopate Mafia, lynched D3
MostlyNormal Vanilla Town, killed N3 (by SK)
Webby Mafia, lynched D4
Gopher of Pern Vanilla Town, Killed N4 (by SK)
t1mm01994 Serial Killer, winner

[Adam H]

When you first got to the safehouse, you felt safe. Now, not so much. Last night, when the zombies came out in full force, one of us was shot in the back of the head. Everyone freaked out when we found him this morning. There's a lot of speculation flying around, but here are the facts:

1. Three of you are Mafia, teaming up to kill the rest.

2. One of you is a Serial Killer.

3. There are zero, one, or two Cops among you. There are zero, one, or two Doctors among you. There is at least one but no more than three Cops and Doctors.

Read the following role PMs for detailed rules.

Spoiler:

Town
The safehouse feels cramped and restless. Your supplies won't last forever, but what can you do but hold out hope for a miracle? Your housemates pretend to agree, but you know some of them would like to push the odds in their favor. Three can survive this Zombie Apocalypse better than 11.
Role: Vanilla Town
Win Condition: The Mafia and Serial Killer must die.
Special Powers: None

Mafia
The safehouse feels cramped and restless. Your supplies won't last forever, but your housemates aren't willing to do what must be done. Obviously you have to pretend to agree, but in the dark of night, behind closed doors, you and two trusted friends make a pact. Three can survive this Zombie Apocalypse better than 11.
Role: Mafia
Win Condition: The Town and Serial Killer must die.
Special Powers: Each night you can chat amongst yourselves and pick one non-mafia player to kill. You cannot be healed by doctors.

Serial Killer
The safehouse feels cramped and restless. You hear whispers in the corridors - whispers of hunger and pain and death. These people who call you friend will stab you in the back the moment you turn around. But you're no fool. Only the strongest will survive this Zombie Apocalypse.
Role: Serial Killer
Win Condition: You must be the last player alive.
Special Powers: Each night you can pick one player to kill. You cannot be killed by the mafia, and an investigation will give a doctor/SK result.

Town Cop
The safehouse feels cramped and restless. Your supplies won't last forever, but what can you do but hold out hope for a miracle? Your housemates pretend to agree, but you know some of them would like to push the odds in their favor. Three can survive this Zombie Apocalypse better than 11.
Role: Town Cop
Win Condition: The Mafia and Serial Killer must die.
Special Powers: Each night you can pick one player to investigate. The result will be one of the following: vanilla town/cop, mafia, or doctor/SK. You cannot be healed by doctors.

Town Doctor
The safehouse feels cramped and restless. Your supplies won't last forever, but what can you do but hold out hope for a miracle? Your housemates pretend to agree, but you know some of them would like to push the odds in their favor. Three can survive this Zombie Apocalypse better than 11.
Role: Town Doctor
Win Condition: The Mafia and Serial Killer must die.
Special Powers: Each night you can pick one player to heal. Cops, Mafia, and the Serial Killer cannot be healed. You will be informed if your healing was successful.

Day 1 starts now. 11 players alive, 6 votes required to lynch. Deadline on Friday, February 10, 4:30pm CST

No need to confirm. Instead, go around and give your name, something interesting about you, and why you should be spared the ignominy of a Day 1 lynch. I'll start: I'm Adam, I made homemade pizza last night, and you can't lynch me cause I make up the rules, suckers!

[Misnomer]

Yo, I'm Misnomer, I've just watched my first superbowl and you shouldn't lynch me because I'm drunk. Also, you shouldn't lynch me because I'm actually pretty decent at scumhunting.

Initial thoughts on the setup is that our potential cop/cops is/are pretty weak - they can confirm town or scum, but they can't confirm sk. Indeed, if they get a sk/doctor result, they might unwittingly screw town over by revealing it: either way, they'd be announcing a target for scum, and the death of said target would boost scum's survival chances.

[trineroks]

Day 1 is a no lynch we got no leads. Can we vote to skip the day?

Call me trine. I'm actually hosting a forum mafia in one of my more active ones.

[trineroks]

Including day skip, can we also have last wills and death notes?

[fearless]

Hi everyone. I used to play vanilla mafia on another forum - but I've since started work and because that other forum contains some suspect words in the url, I've decided it's probably best that I don't go there during work hours.

Not really used to the whole "extra roles" thing but I'm getting there! It's been really dull at work so people should post lots and entertain me

[Gopher of Pern]

Let meeeeeee..... Entertain you.........

My name is Gopher, and I'm an alcoholic.

Wait, wrong room.

I'm Gopher, and my interests are candlelit dinners, and long walks on the beach.

Oh, thats for the other website.

Meh, I'm Gopher, I suck at jokes, and you shouldn't lynch me, because I'm really quite a nice guy.


trineroks - I haven't seen you before, so here's some advice here - advocating day 1 no lynch is generally considered bad, unless there are extreme extenuating circumstances. Skipping the day is even worse - there would be absolutely no discussion to base day 2 off then. What do you mean about last wills and death notes?

[TheMaskedGecko]

Hi, I'm TMG.
No time for a real post now, so consider this s confirming post.
One thing I notice is that our weak power roles (what a clumsy phrase that is) make a couple of standard tactics impossible. Role claiming cop will be a very risky move for town but the fact that there are up to 2 cops and 3 doctors makes role claiming less dangerous for scum.
More to come when I have more time.

[Radical_Initiator]

Hi, I'm Radical_Initiator (abbreviate that however you prefer), I'm a professional cynic (but my heart's not in it), and I shouldn't be lynched on D1 because I've never done this before, so I have no idea yet whether I'm good at outing scum or not. I could be super-psychic and just not know it yet. Plus, I've been watching episodes of "Sherlock", so my deductive ability should be right off the charts, shouldn't it?

[t1mm01994]

For anyone who asks about the basic mechanics:, this pretty much says it all:
viewtopic.php?f=53&t=29022
7/3/1 town/scum/indie.. Sounds just fine.
Anyways, I'm Tim, semi-experienced here, at least I know the basics.. More to come when I'm more bored

[fearless]

I shouldn't be lynched on D1 because I'm too cute to be lynched on D1

[Adam H]

Let me know if you didn't get a Role PM. (If not, it's the zombie's fault.)

[Radical_Initiator]

None are so cute as to avoid the swift talons of JUSTICE! or ZOMBIES! or perhaps ZOMBIES WITH TALONS. Good God, I think I wet myself with the last one.

[t1mm01994]

Statistics have proven that GoP should die.
Vote Gopher of Pern
Your jokes are not nice. You surely are scum. What are you going to do about it?

[TheMaskedGecko]

Firstly it seems that Last Will is a mechanic where players give their vote to another player of their voice if they die a la here http://mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=13369. Sounds like an interesting idea to try at some point. And death notes are a mechanic I don't really understand but can be observed here: http://www.mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11629. If this is what trine is on about then no, they're not in this game.

So looking at the OP we have all numbers, roles and weaknesses spelled out.
Not much too go on until everyone's posted but...

Never played a game with an SK in, can someone more experienced tell me what usually happens. It would seem that they have no real reason to pick a side. However my guess would be that they'll bump of a couple of town first and then just keep balancing the sides out, to keep us fighting as long as possible. On the last night they'll want one town and one scum but by that point we'll have lost anyway. This is just spec, I would appreciate if someone would confirm/correct this

FoS: trine for suggesting an NL. Maybe that's standard play elsewhere but I can't think of a way that allowing two NKs to happen with no info gathered would ever help.

[trineroks]

I advocate a no lynch because a random lynch at this time is useless. There's a 3/11 chance of getting a scum, and I don't like that probability.

And yes, a no lynch Day 1 is standard in most forum mafia and online mafia games.

A last will can be anything: for example, cops can put in their last will who they investigated each night to help the town. Doctors can write in their will who they protected each night, etc.

A death note is a creative note that the mafia can leave on their victims. It can be anything; most people write in their death notes a puzzle or encrypted message, maybe even a taunt.

[t1mm01994]

This was said in other games as well, but you weren't there, so I can't blame you for that. A first day lynch usually isn't random. It's a bad-advised lynch, that much is true, but it's information for later days. Say a lynch on you is rolling, and I defend you for no reason, and you DO appear to be scum, it's nearly sure that I'm scum, too. On the other hand, if multiple people vote for someone that happens to be town, it probably is so that one or multiple of them is scum. This isn't set in stone, but that's the standard around here... And if we no-lynch, the only thing that happens is that scum get a NK, SK will get a NK, so that's 2 random persons dead, and we possibly get barely any information. To be fair, I'd rather have an ill-advised lynch, and I'm going for GoP today.

[Misnomer]

Never played a game with an SK in, can someone more experienced tell me what usually happens. It would seem that they have no real reason to pick a side. However my guess would be that they'll bump of a couple of town first and then just keep balancing the sides out, to keep us fighting as long as possible. On the last night they'll want one town and one scum but by that point we'll have lost anyway. This is just spec, I would appreciate if someone would confirm/correct this

That's more or less what usually happens, although I'd be surprised if they deliberately went exclusively after town first - they'll probably want to deal an early blow against scum in order to see off an early endgame, but avoid wiping them out completely until town's numbers have also been thinned.

Mod: are scum and sk kills processed simultaneously, or does one take priority?
Might have important implications for the endgame.

trineroks: yes, a pure random lynch would be useless, but D1 lynches are rarely actually random. Even if people claim they're just picking names out of a hat, who votes for who can still prove highly useful for later scumhunting. Also, it's a 4/11 chance of hitting anti-town, which ain't too shabby tbh.

NInja'd: what T1mm said, but... T1mm, is your vote on GoP serious?

[Adam H]

Mafia and SK kills are processed simultaneously. That is, even if SK kills the last mafia, the mafia's kill will still go through. Also, there won't be an indication of whether the SK or Mafia (or both) performed the kills.

[t1mm01994]

Seeing how /everyone/ always complains about boring day 1's, I figured I might do some spicing up... But if someone can tell me it's a bad idea to lynch GoP, I'd be happy to believe it.

[Misnomer]

Seeing how /everyone/ always complains about boring day 1's, I figured I might do some spicing up... But if someone can tell me it's a bad idea to lynch GoP, I'd be happy to believe it.

Yes, D1s are boring, and any effort at spicing them up is to be commended. But why exactly did you choose GoP? Is it actually based on 'statistics'? And is this mainly to generate discussion, or are you actually pushing for a GoP lynch over rival candidates?

[t1mm01994]

Well, Lincoln always said that 75% of all statistics are made up, and you shouldn't believe all quotes on the internet. I chose GoP because he's one of which I know he can be dangerous as scum, so if I'd have to lynch someone at random, I'd rather lynch a dangerous scum/good town than bad scum/bad town...

[Gopher of Pern]

Dangerous as scum?! I'm terrible at scum! I don't think I've won a single game as scum. Plus I'm town, so there's no reason to lynch me.

Yeah, there are no death notes or last wills in this game. And we are not NL. Especially not with 2 kills out there.

[t1mm01994]

Seems legit.
Unvote
Now, does anyone have any better ideas for people to lynch?

[Mostlynormal]

Plus I'm town, so there's no reason to lynch me.

Seems legit.

Hi, I'm Mostlynormal. I'm not very interesting actually. But you definitely shouldn't lynch me day one, because I'm the best there is at scumhunting. Just look at day two of neighborhood mafia*. It takes skill to acheive that level of greatness.

I think it's interesting that doctor will be informed if they're succsessful. Since the only people it fails on are cops and mafia, it could provide some useful information. But it depends on the definition of successful.

Do doctors get informed if their protection "went through" or only if it specifically blocked a kill?

Even if it's the latter, that information would confirm somebody as non-mafia (possibly serial killer), which would be useful once the SK dies.

TMG mentioned claims being hard to beleive because of uncertain numbers and unprotectable cops. I think the best way to deal with claims would be to ask for a list of all their night actions (whether they're a doctor or a cop, since both are useful in this case) and then lynch them anyway, since scum would be as likely to claim as a true power role. If they flip scum, the list is wine, and we ignore it. If they flip town, we've got a good bit of useful information for the rest of the game, in compensation for having lynched a power role.

*Disclaimer for those who don't know: I'm not actually an arrogant jerk. I'm being sarcastic. That was the game where I managed to convince myself that the only other two townies were actually the two scum.

[t1mm01994]

I helped in that game, the one he was being "arrogant" about. But yeah, I don't really bite. Since you probably want some sort of reason why not to kill me day 1 - I'm very useful at finding scum. Just look at day 2 from Neighbourhood Mafia... I joke, I joke, I kid, I kid... But yeah. Looking at the role PMs, the doctors are in for a hard time... In the worst case, they have 4 people out of 10 on which the protect works. Ah well..
Is it possible that doctors heal eachother indefinitely? So that a 2 mafia vs 2 doctors would be a draw?
J

[TheMaskedGecko]

I helped in that game

Yes, you 'helped'. I'm still annoyed about that. Anyway, back on topic...

I'm pretty sure that 2vs2 is a default scum win. Also we can't trust any of our doctors remember, on account of the whole 'murderous psychopath thing'.

Which nicely segues (what an awful spelling of such a lovely word) into my next point. If we get a confirmed doctor, by dint of killing a cop vis-a-vis mn, should we then lynch the doctor on the basis that there's a chance between 1/3 and 1 that they're the SK. Those are decent odds of killing an antitown player.

Maybe its just because I'm tired but it looks to me that the only way to win this game is by lynching our own power roles. Great.

[Radical_Initiator]

I helped in that game, the one he was being "arrogant" about. But yeah, I don't really bite. Since you probably want some sort of reason why not to kill me day 1 - I'm very useful at finding scum. Just look at day 2 from Neighbourhood Mafia... I joke, I joke, I kid, I kid... But yeah. Looking at the role PMs, the doctors are in for a hard time... In the worst case, they have 4 people out of 10 on which the protect works. Ah well..
Is it possible that doctors heal eachother indefinitely? So that a 2 mafia vs 2 doctors would be a draw?
J

I think TMG is probably right as regards two doctors vs. two mafia, but if this was considered by the mod at the beginning, it would be a good reason (I would think) not to include more than one doctor, if any.

[eculc]

Hey, all. I live in maine, which means that if you got caught cheering for the giants yesterday, you were shunned from society.

also, you shouldn't lynch me because I'm new at this. =P

[Gopher of Pern]

I think some people have misinterpreted the rules.

There are between 0 - 2 cops. There are between 0 - 2 docs. There are between 1 - 3 docs AND cops. So we could have, for example, 2 cops and 1 doc, or 1 of each, but we cannot have 2 of each. Which means there are between 4 and 6 regular town. It means there are, depending on how it was randomly determined, 5/7 chance we have at least 1 cop, same chance for at least one doc, and a 3/7 chance we have at least one of each. 4/7 chance we have two of one of them. 2/7 chance we only have 1 power role. Yay, stats!

First priority is always scum. There are more of them, and they are just as dangerous as the SK. Best case scenario: We lynch scum, scum and SK kill each other, leaving just 1 scum. But thats just wishful thinking. Worst case scenario: lynch town, scum and SK kill town (To boot, lets make em all power roles), which will leave use with 4/3/1, so town will not have a majority, they will need the SK's help to lynch scum. Sk would likely help town in this situation, as they would become a priority target in scums eyes. So 1 mislynch is bad, depending on how the SK and scum choose their kills.

Cops would have to be careful if they get a doc/sk result. I would advise claiming that result if there is only one scum alive and the SK is alive, as the SK is now as important as finding scum.

Just some thoughts about the setup, for generating some discussion.

*ninjad*

Generally, doctors can't heal doctors, but it seems they can in this game. Obviously Adam is trying to get around the follow the cop strategy, although just having an unknown amount of docs/cops is usually enough to get around that. There is only a 2/7 chance that we have 2 docs though, so I don't think that tactic will come up.

*ninjad again*

Go Giants!

Is that some sporting team?

[Radical_Initiator]

No, we simply like to pit genetic outliers against those who love our great and prosperous country during the annual Hunger Games.

[Adam H]

Do doctors get informed if their protection "went through" or only if it specifically blocked a kill?

Doctors will be told either that their target did not need healing, or that they successfully saved their target from death. If two doctors successfully save an attacked target, one doc (chosen randomly) will be told they saved the target and the other doc will be told the target did not need saving.

Is it possible that doctors heal eachother indefinitely? So that a 2 mafia vs 2 doctors would be a draw?

Doctors can heal each other without limit. In all draw or tie scenarios, SK > Mafia > Town.

[greenlover]

First priority is always scum. There are more of them, and they are just as dangerous as the SK. Best case scenario: We lynch scum, scum and SK kill each other, leaving just 1 scum. But thats just wishful thinking. Worst case scenario: lynch town, scum and SK kill town (To boot, lets make em all power roles), which will leave use with 4/3/1, so town will not have a majority, they will need the SK's help to lynch scum. Sk would likely help town in this situation, as they would become a priority target in scums eyes. So 1 mislynch is bad, depending on how the SK and scum choose their kills.

Eh, I would have to disagree with this. First priority for down should be to remove the SK, since killing off the sk removes a nk from the game, while it would take lynching all three scum to get the same result. Thus, lynching the SK is worth three times as much as lynching a traditional scum, imo.

Anyway, I guess introducing ourselves is all the rage in the game so... Hi! I'm greenlover, but you can all just call me Green, or GL, or the guy who always lurks (though I'm working on that, honest!). You all shouldn't lynch me on day one 'cause I'm an experienced player who'd like to keep up his record of not getting lynched on D1. I know, I know, that's an amazing reason.

[Mostlynormal]

Doctors will be told either that their target did not need healing, or that they successfully saved their target from death. If two doctors successfully save an attacked target, one doc (chosen randomly) will be told they saved the target and the other doc will be told the target did not need saving.

Ok, so it's the second. Still could be useful information, as a saved target is either town or a serial killer.

Doctors can heal each other without limit. In all draw or tie scenarios, SK > Mafia > Town.

Hmm. So maybe, if one doctor is forced into claiming, and there's another doctor somewhere out there, it'd be a good idea for them both to claim, so we can have two invincible townies till the end? There's the problem of trust, but I think if one of the claimed doctors was scum their partner would get nightkilled pretty fast by the opposing scum faction

I agree with greenlover that the SK would be a more important target, but at day one we'll have enough trouble finding any scum, let alone the right kind. However I don't agree, in general, with the people who've been advocating lynching doctor/SK results. All other things being equal, actual content would be much more valuable than their "chance" of being the SK. It'd be better to leave them alive in hopes that they were the doctor (they'd probably get nightkilled by the mafia anyway since the mafia want both doctor and SK dead, so they probably shouldn't be revealed in the first place), and then lynch them later if evidence started piling up.

In fact, minor FoS(finger of suspicion): TMG for advocating the killing of someone who's a natural enemy of the mafia.

[trineroks]

Upon reading the posts, I realized that there are 3 maf AND 1 sk. A 4/11 probability. Thanks for clearing that up Misnomer

And I agree that SK needs to be taken care of ASAP. As long as there is 1 sk and at least 1 maf alive, there will be 2 kills per night.

[trineroks]

Oh and also another question

Will roles be revealed upon death?

[fearless]

Removing the SK sounds good theoretically but there is no way for the townies to /know/ who the SK is. An investigation will turn up SK or Doc (right? Or have I misunderstood this part?). With 11 of us I imagine the SK would want to eliminate a couple of mafia first (or at least alternate) so then there is at least some sort of goal congruence. And the SK is acting solo - which makes it hard to analyse whereas if we go for the mafia first then maybe we'll stumble upon patterns and whatnot.

Hmm. So maybe, if one doctor is forced into claiming, and there's another doctor somewhere out there, it'd be a good idea for them both to claim, so we can have two invincible townies till the end? There's the problem of trust, but I think if one of the claimed doctors was scum their partner would get nightkilled pretty fast by the opposing scum faction

Except we don't know if we have 2 docs. What if we only have one and he/she is forced into claiming and there isn't another doc out there to save the first doc? What's to stop a mafia from false claiming, since the 2 (potential) docs don't know each other? Claiming at this point is a bad idea.

[TheMaskedGecko]

In fact, minor FoS(finger of suspicion): TMG for advocating the killing of someone who's a natural enemy of the mafia.

I don't understand this at all. SK is lynch immune isn't he?. Therefore he's only a natural enemy of whoever's winning, who aren't automatically scum.

[fearless]

What do you mean SK is lynch immune???

[trineroks]

A lynch immune role would be clearly overpowered. SK is immune to only night kills.