Zombie Apocalypse - Game Over: SK (T1mm) Wins

[fearless]

I say we go for the lurkers first because they're really not value adding and we can't even gauge whether they're good/bad because they don't say anything.

*prods eculer

[TheMaskedGecko]

Dammit, I meant NK immune. I was in a rush.

[Misnomer]

Yikes, the sk is nk immune? Totally missed that in my initial skim. That changes the balance somewhat, and makes the sk a far more dangerous opponent for town, as we cannot hold out hope of them being killed in the mafia crossfire.

However, it's important to note that an early sk lynch is just desirable, not vital - we shouldn't be avoiding lynching people who we think might be scum just because a sk lynch would potentially be better.

[eculc]

I say we go for the lurkers first because they're really not value adding and we can't even gauge whether they're good/bad because they don't say anything.

*prods eculer

yeah, sorry about that. unfortunately, I don't have too much access to my computer. technically, I *shouldn't* be doing this right this minute, considering that I'm in school. I should be helpful in around 7 hours when I get home.

[fearless]

I'm sorry. In the world of smart phones, "no computer" in "no excuse".
j/k. School is important. Maybe you're too poor to buy a smartphone.
j/k. I had a shit phone for the longest time so i don't blame you.

[eculc]

I'm sorry. In the world of smart phones, "no computer" in "no excuse".
j/k. School is important. Maybe you're too poor to buy a smartphone.
j/k. I had a shit phone for the longest time so i don't blame you.

pretty much this.

[Adam H]

Last chance to sign-up for Boomfrog's Underworld game! If you don't sign-up, you don't get a chance to redeem yourself.

Will roles be revealed upon death?

Yes

[Radical_Initiator]

I must have missed where the signup for the underworld game is. Anyone care to point it out, unless it's too late?

[Adam H]

Yeah, sorry to be confusing about the underworld game. My fault. Signup for it here (check to make sure there's a more recent post though).

[eculc]

mikeD hasn't posted yet. OP implies that everyone has a role at this point, so we have 7/2/1, 6/3/1, or 7/3/0. which means that *potentially* all scum has to do is NK SK and they win. so, maybe killing scum isn't a bad idea, after all.

[Radical_Initiator]

mikeD hasn't posted yet. OP implies that everyone has a role at this point, so we have 7/2/1, 6/3/1, or 7/3/0. which means that *potentially* all scum has to do is NK SK and they win. so, maybe killing scum isn't a bad idea, after all.

Not sure I follow, but it has already been stated that SK is NK-immune.

[eculc]

mikeD hasn't posted yet. OP implies that everyone has a role at this point, so we have 7/2/1, 6/3/1, or 7/3/0. which means that *potentially* all scum has to do is NK SK and they win. so, maybe killing scum isn't a bad idea, after all.

Not sure I follow, but it has already been stated that SK is NK-immune.

oops, missed that little nugget of information somehow. my point still stands, to an extent, although not as much as I thought (both that error and the fact that I was a bit confused by the rules...gimme a break, I'm new at this.)

mikeD hasn't posted yet, which means that the spread is 6/3/1, 7/2/1, or 7/3/0 (until he confirms he's in the game, that is.) If mike is town (which is most likely) and the SK and scum kill town N1, then the spread drops to 4/3/1, which is no good at all. If he's SK, we only have to deal with scum, which isn't bad. If he's scum, then scum only has 2 rather than 3, and it'll take longer for them to win, at least.

[Misnomer]

Not entirely sure I agree with you there eculc. There may come a point mid-game where a sk lynch would be suicide, as it would hand scum a majority. But even with the possibility of a mikeD modkill (and that would appear to be a slim possibility, as we seem to have acquired an extra player in the signups topic - you might want to look into that Mod) a D1 sk lynch would give us 5/3, which would not be endgame territory. As I've said though, I consider the point moot - at this stage, we should be hunting anyone vaguely anti-town, as wider tactical considerations are at best a distraction for the time being.

[t1mm01994]

I've got very little to go on so far, as every post so far has basically been composed of 1 or 2 rules, saying very little to nothing at all.
So, to change that, I will try and post a somewhat longer post.
The doctor(s) are very risky this game, and so are the cops. Doctoring someone might protect scum from a SK night kill, copping someone might lead to a doctor/SK result, which is not too great in itsself. Vanilla town/cop and Mafia are excellent resutls though, so cops should pretty much go on their usual jobs of copping whoever they think is scummy. In late game though, if SK is still alive and we don't have 2 dead doctors, we shouldn't trust any doc claims, as it's a really easy move for SK to make. On the other hand, scum can pretty easily claim cops, because they can produce results true or false as they please, just as long as they avoid the Doc/SK.
tl;dr: Don't believe any claims you see in the forseeable future.

[Misnomer]

I've got very little to go on so far, as every post so far has basically been composed of 1 or 2 rules, saying very little to nothing at all.
So, to change that, I will try and post a somewhat longer post.
The doctor(s) are very risky this game, and so are the cops. Doctoring someone might protect scum from a SK night kill, copping someone might lead to a doctor/SK result, which is not too great in itsself. Vanilla town/cop and Mafia are excellent resutls though, so cops should pretty much go on their usual jobs of copping whoever they think is scummy. In late game though, if SK is still alive and we don't have 2 dead doctors, we shouldn't trust any doc claims, as it's a really easy move for SK to make. On the other hand, scum can pretty easily claim cops, because they can produce results true or false as they please, just as long as they avoid the Doc/SK.
tl;dr: Don't believe any claims you see in the forseeable future.

FoS: t1mm01994

Scum cannot be protected by doctors - there is absolutely no reason for doctors to worry about using their powers.

[t1mm01994]

Free FoSes for everyone! I'm not used to mechanics out of the ordinary, I'm very sorry. The tl;dr remains true though.

[Gopher of Pern]

Cops claiming anything aside from scum results would be silly, at least early on in the game.

I really dont think we need to worry about modkills already. Its only been a couple of days.

So far, I've gotten pings from trineroks, but they seem to come from a totally different meta. Advocating NL, with potentially 2 kills out there, seems very dangerous. Even if we prevented both kills, which may not even be possible, we would then go to day 2 with no useful information, aside from knowing that we have 2 docs, and possibly 1 cop result. All in all, its not very likely, we will get so much more information from votals and peoples feelings towards each other, even if we do manage to get worst case scenario, and have 3 dead townies by tomorrow. 3 dead townies means SK will have to work on towns side, because as soon as the mafia get a majority, they win, which they will be close.

[eculc]

I suppose 5/3 isn't much of a problem, but it's something to think about. unfortunately, there's not much to go on, so

FoS: Misnomer

giving some possibilities that aren't entirely correct seems like a pretty lousy reason to be suspecting someone.

[Radical_Initiator]

I'm actually mostly agreeing with GoP here; something about advocating for a D1 skip seems off to me. Sure, you do avoid a possible (quite probable, actually) town lynch, but an accidental town lynch is almost a certainty in early game. The trade is momentary safety for a complete lack of information, and if you're hoping to gain more than enough information from the N1 kills (remember, kids, that's plural), you're going to have to hope to glean a LOT of info from the victims. The N1 kills have no chance of hitting the SK, so IMO, a D1 lynch to try to find the SK is still probably a net positive.

FoS: trineroks

[Radical_Initiator]

EBWOP: Advocating for NL on D1 is one thing; people can still converse and can still attempt to out the scum or the SK. Advocating a D1 skip, if I'm reading this right, means no information of any sort from discussions (at least after the skip is agreed upon) and, to my way of thinking, gives substantial advantage to the SK. So yeah, FoS-aplenty.

[Mostlynormal]

I have to agree with eculc here. It may be day one, but T1mm has a history of forgetting something about the rules and then looking scummy, whether he actually turns out to be scum or not.

I don't think there's any reason to suspect trineroks. Apparently they do things quite differently in other communities, and that's no reason to suspect someone in the absence of other evidence.

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?

Well, I was thinking that the other scum team would be trying to kill these doctors, so if scum falseclaimed, their partner would die, and we would know they were lying about being a doctor. However, this is really too subject to WIFOM, so I think I agree with you now.

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[sic]immune isn't he?. Therefore he's only a natural enemy of whoever's winning, who aren't automatically scum.

Well, it's not necessarily an SK. It could be a doctor, which the mafia want dead either way. But town doesn't know, so they wouldn't be as eager to lynch a possible power role.

[trineroks]

Alright guys, I know I advocated a nl, but that was because I totally forgot the SK. A 4/11 chance isn't actually that bad, so I now understand why you guys want a lynch. However, in the off case that we kill a townie, that's one townie lynched, 2 NKs, most likely leading to 4/7. 3 maf, 1 sk, 3 townie.

The sk at this point will have to play it well and work with the townies, making the townies reluctant to lynch even a confirmed sk. So in the worst case scenario, town is screwed.

Btw, what's with the extremely long day 1? Is it xkcd custom to have long day sequences like this?

[TheMaskedGecko]

Well, it's not necessarily an SK. It could be a doctor, which the mafia want dead either way. But town doesn't know, so they wouldn't be as eager to lynch a possible power role.

That makes more sense. I wasn't out and out advocating killing the doc, more questioning whether it was a valid stategy, which issomething we need right now. My point was that we've definitely got one role which will give a doctor result. Taking in to account the fact that to get said result we will have killed off a cop, then this will give us a chance of no less than 1 in 3 of lynching an antitown player. The possibility of killing a doctor who can't save cops seems a decent sacrifice. This is merely me explaining myself, as this situation is vastly unlikely to happen.

And ninja'd
Firstly: yeah, I forgot that having an SK might be helpful. However we do have to kill them at some point. And yes, mafia in these forums is a leisurely pursuit, like stamp collecting, watercolours or stalking semi-famous public figures.

[fearless]

Yeah it's common to have long day and night cycles. I prefer it this way actually. Less time pressure and we can actually deal with real life stuff

Advocating no lynch on D1 isn't that uncommon - esp. if the player is new. The other fora that I played at don't have a lynch on D1 - but there is often still plenty of discussion. So I don't think trin is suspect for suggesting it.

Is there a replacement for MikeD? In case he's a no show.

[Adam H]

we seem to have acquired an extra player in the signups topic - you might want to look into that Mod)

MikeD has about 7 hours to post, otherwise he will be replaced (by that late signup, assuming I hear back from him/her).

[Radical_Initiator]

So, maybe not trine, but then who? I'm not buying t1mm based on apparent misreading/did not read the rules (seems to be pretty common in this game, although that could be a strategy for scum to misrepresent facts), and personally, being a new player, any history he might have doesn't mean much to me here. Plus, I'm not comfortable siding against L.J. Tibbs. Not just yet, anyway.

But that doesn't seem to leave a whole lot of information to go on.

[TheMaskedGecko]

OK so a first impressions post for everybody

fearless: One real contentful post, which is in reply to someone else. I'll be keeping an eye out for active lurking. Also protects trine a bit, so if one of these two flips scum, we should take a close look at the other.

Misnomer: Post about the SK makes sense. Neutral on trine's call for day skip, but doesn't assume that Tim's GoP vote was based on nothing, which pings me slightly. Also doesn't notice that the SK is NK immune, maybe an attempt at covering up his role? Or maybe he's one of the high number who didn't read through the rules/flavour*.

MikeD: will be modkilled by the time I finish this post.

Gopher of Pern: Also reasonable towards trine. Reacts well to Tim's vote, although I would have been surprised if they didn't. Them goes on to talk sense about power roles and the SK. Edging town.

Eculc: Lack of content, even when he posts. His FoS on misnomer is odd. Edging scum until I see some more content.

trineroks: I still don't get their first post. I don't find it scummy though, as an attempt to mislead us that blatantly would only really be done by scum who misjudged their influence. Seems to be playing the stats, rather than the people. Also keeps bringing up things which highlight their unfamiliarity with this type of play. That question about the length of the day pings me especially, as I personally would have taken a look at the other games being played. Maybe trying to cover up possible scum tells with over-blown newbity.

greenlover: Really advocates killing SK as priority 1. His reason makes a kind of sense but he does miss the point that even finding the SK is tricky.

t1mm01994: I was relieved when he voted GoP, as I was starting to feel that I should do something ill advised to cause conversation. No idea how much info he got from it but that doesn't matter right now. Its a towny action. And then he goes and spoils it by saying he'll write a longer post which ends up the same length as the preceding two and says nothing new. Neutral at the moment.

MostlyNormal: Talks sense about dealing with unreliable claims and doctor lynching. Also defends trine (see fearless, above).

Radical_Initiator: Very little original, useful content. You might want to be careful about spending all your time agreeing with people. It looks scummy.

*Something of which am not innocent. Hi I'm The Masked Gecko. I recently gave up any hope of becoming a serious musician by taking up the bass instead. And you shouldn't kill me because I'm your last, best hope to escape this apocalypse alive.

call me Green, or GL, or the guy who always lurks (though I'm working on that, honest!)

Lets help him with that

Vote: greenlover

^that stays until I see some content or someone else captures my attention.

[eculc]

I agree with you on greenlover, as well as fearless (in fact I was about to post something commenting on that when I noticed yours).

My suspicion towards misnomer was based solely on his reaction to t1mm's mistake. the fact that he pointed it out so distinctly seemed to strike me as odd.

I'm not sure I agree with you as far as radical...he seems to be acting logically, and that's not much to base anything off of.

Vote: Greenlover

His lurking seems odd to me. everyone else has at least posted, whether their posts had any meaningful content or not.

FoS: Fearless

for what appears to be some active lurking.

[Gopher of Pern]

Vote: eculc

When someone puts a vote on someone to stop them lurking, its generally not a good idea to put a second one on them. There are also a few other things off about them.

I dont agree with everything TMG said (especially about bass. Bass rocks!), but i don't find the disagreements scummy.

[eculc]

Unvote

because you asked so nicely. and I'm a "him" BTW.

also, Please don't mistake my appearance of complete noobiness as a ploy; I'm actually pretty new to forum mafia, as in this is the first game I've played.

still, I have a gut feeling about fearless...I'm not going to start throwing votes left-and-right on a hunch, though.

[Mostlynormal]

I agree that there are a few things off about eculc, but right now I'm more worried about Radical_Initiator. They've been doing quite a bit of short, little content posts. That may just be because its early, but I'd like to see more from them. So for now:

Vote: Radical_Initiator

[Radical_Initiator]

And now on the defensive:

The low-content posts have two reasons:

1.) I tend to be at work 10-11 hours a day, and I still enjoy sleep. Posts come when I have some spare time at work, or when I get home.
2.) This is my first ever game of Mafia. I've read through a few of the less jargon-laden threads before signing up, but I'm still trying to figure out a strategy, let alone parse everyone else's speculation. Not that there's been much substantive speculation beyond trying to use a random vote to force discussion. I don't think it worked as well as was hoped.

Everyone's problem has been the lack of information. What, prey tell, am I actually supposed to be adding?

[eculc]

yeah, I think I'm more-or-less in the same position as radical. I'm at home more often, but that doesn't mean that I have any more information than anyone else. Everything at this point is speculation based on what people have said (or not said) and I fail to see how that makes anyone appear too much worse than anyone else.

[trineroks]

@TMG

lol I love how almost all the first impressions of players have something to do with me I feel special.

And you suspect some sort of ploy or gambit. No. Take my word for it, I'm fairly new to xkcd forums, and I'm also new to this style of forum mafia play (one with a day 1 lynch).

[TheMaskedGecko]

@RI and eculc: content creation 101- the easiest way to create content is to do what I did, and analyse people's posts. Admittedly that did take a while to write. So may pick the scummiest person/people. Eculc, you mentioned suspecting fearless. So go back and look at what she's said. It also helps to get your own thoughts in order. Even if this leads to a bad L1, we still have something to work with D2.

And sorry eculc but that GL vote earns you an

FoS: eculc

@ GoP: naw, you ruined the surprise. But you did earn yourself a a bunch of townie points.

@trine: like it or not, your cockup was one of the only things that have happened so far.

[Adam H]

Votals:
Greenlover: 1 (TheMaskedGecko)
Radical_Initiator: 1 (MostlyNormal)
eculc: 1 (Gopher of Pern)

Deadline is in 30 hours, 40 minutes from this post.

MikeD will be killed at the end of Night 1 if I cannot find a replacement by then.

[fearless]

I am wary about eculc - he suspects me because he has a gut feeling? Seriously? Then FoS's me for active lurking when he's the one who has to be prodded (by me). Votes and unvotes swiftly - quick to FOS... definitely fishy behaviour. Perhaps he's trying to spread suspicion on everyone regardless of whether they are deserving or not. Then tries to do some simple statistics advocating that we lynch scum first then SK (This is inline with my logic too, so he claws back some points - but it makes me wonder if he's the SK? But no, if he was the SK then he would have known about the NK-immunity... nevermind.)

vote radical
He claims to be a newbie but then has very strong opinions about a NL on D1 - Based on his posts it really doesn't appear that way. Looks like he is using the newbie excuse as cover. Very eager to push for Trine's lynch because of his NL statement. Looks like someone who's been scourging for the first sign of a mistake and is quick to latch onto that. If Trine really is mafia I doubt he would advocate a NL as statistically, a d1 lynch is generally a town.

mister_gecko appears pro-town. good analyses on everyone - insightful and unbiased. I'll reserve my opinion on the rest.

[Radical_Initiator]

Yes, very strong opinions about NL on D1 - which I was quite willing to back away from once it was established by several people that they may play that way in other fora. I haven't yet actually voted for anyone, however, and I was under the impression that FoS means next to nothing, aside from generating some talk. Then again, fearless has been marked as possibly trying to protect trine, so that seems a little more suspicious to me that you're so worried trine might be suspect. But the eagerness to lynch trine ... it's just not there.

But to clarify that stance: after some thought, I'm able to see why one might advocate NL on D1, perhaps especially in this game. With 2 NKs on first night, there's a good chance of two town going down before D2 even starts; if the modkill is in addition to any other kills (question for mod: if it isn't, whose kill would it replace?), then a lynch on D1, which statistically has good chance to hit town, and 2 NKs that can hit town leaves a worst-case scenario of 3/3/1 (or 4/3/1 if MikeD's death replaces another kill or ushers in a replacement) - in that case, leaving out the D1 lynch moves that worst-case scenario back to 4/3/1 (or 5/3/1), which is slightly more comfortable. I still think a D1 lynch is a better idea (more info, especially from arguments, and there's a good chance of hitting SK or scum in the first place), but I'm less inclined to view a NL as scumlike.

What puzzled me is the advocacy for a D1 skip. If I read that right, that's basically an end to D1 discussion (which, BTW, is producing some fantastic pseudo-Sherlocking) and starts D2 two people down and no information wiser. If you don't lynch on D1, at least you get the scuttlebutt that you can look back on after the NKs to get a feel for who might have had motive to press in certain directions. Skipping entirely just gives you the dead people and their roles, which is information you would have had anyway, and no extra information to begin D2, which then begins with almost exactly the same level of finger-pointing we've already had.

Misnomer's early FoS on t1mm seemed ill-advised, to me; to my way of thinking, that's more a clear case of latching onto a minor mistake. Numerous people have (apparently) forgotten or failed to read the roles, so snapping on that seems like a stretch. Even still, at the point that the finger was pointed, there was even less info to go on, so it's not necessarily a diversion. And I've already mentioned that t1mm acting scummy anywhere else doesn't really mean much (to me). So I don't see much problem (right now) with Misnomer or t1mm (though t1mm hasn't posted since getting FoS'd ...)

More than any of that, though, is what strikes me as scum-potential now: advocating a quick end to the SK. Sure, it gets rid of someone town AND scum need dead, so it's good for all but the SK, but it's even better for scum, whose win condition requires that the SK dies, but the scum can't do it themselves, even if they knew who the SK was. Therefore, a scum win requires convincing town to lynch the SK before too many of them are killed, i.e. in the early game. And as has been pointed out, if the worst-case scenario (or something close to it) does unfold, the SK will have incentive to play a little pro-town on D2, possibly D3. It's a dangerous gambit for town to keep the SK around, but it may pay off in the later stages, especially as the pool dwindles, more information comes out and the SK becomes a more probable, if not verifiable, target. As far as I can tell, those who have most advocated for a fast SK lynch are greenlover, trine and (to a lesser extent) eculc. Make of that what you will.

Lynching lurkers doesn't seem like all that positive a strategy to me. It gets rid of folks who aren't participating much, but is little better than a random lynch when you realize their lurking means you have no real information to act on. Of course, if you're mikeD, you need to do something.

As for not being a newbie: If you doubt me as far as this forum goes, check my post history. Never stepped foot in a Mafia game on this forum. Of course, you might say "well, that only proves you played somewhere else!" And, of course, I can't provide evidence of a negative. So, there's nothing to be done about that. As I said, I've read over a few of the other games in this forum (the ones that don't get too specialized: I can't make heads or tails of the Hogwarts game), and attempted to glean information on basic play from them.

My first instinct is to go all OMGUS on fearless, but I'll refrain (for now). I would ask that you try to get others' names right, though (mister_gecko? eculer?)

Other players:

TMG, despite admonishing me for agreeing with others, seems legit to me (oh God, have I become more scummy because of that?)
Misnomer snapped a little early, but early game seems a good time for shooting without looking first.
GoP: Seems town to me. Nothing to go on so far that says differently.
eculc: Vote/unvote for GL seems suspicious, but may be attributed to inexperience (although, having been accused of using newbism as a cover, I should extend to you the same courtesy)
Mostlynormal: Is this better?

[Adam H]

if the modkill is in addition to any other kills (question for mod: if it isn't, whose kill would it replace?

The modkill would be in addition to any other kills.

I still have hope that I'll hear back from either MikeD or Woopate (the late 12th signup); it looks like neither has visited the forum since I PMed them.

[Mostlynormal]

Unvote: Radical_Initiator

Fearless's last post was a bit strange. She gave a very good case for lynching eculc and then decided to vote R_I instead. "Pretending to be a newbie" just seems like a too paranoid reason to base a lynch off of. It almost seems like she's trying to "spread suspicion on everyone," something she accused eculc of doing, ironically.

Eculc seems to be acting very scummily right now, but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt because of his newbieness. This doesn't mean I'll let him play the newbie card, but rather that I want to see if he can bring something to the table before I vote for him. Eculc, your excuse is that there's not much to go on, but you'll learn that that's the case with every D1. The important thing is to take what you can go on and go from there. Is there anyone you think is scummy other than fearless and Greenlover?

For now,

Vote: fearless