Micro 279: Uncommon Mafia - OVER

[callforjudgement]

Hi everyone!

I have some thoughts about the setup speculation, but I'd prefer to start by focusing on figuring out alignments the old-fashioned way.

@Alduskkel

: You seem to have been posting entirely about setup speculation between #390 and #550 (and most of the posts since, too). I understand that you have a 1v1 at the moment, but I'm interested in what your thoughts about the recent play are in terms of old-fashioned scumtells rather than trying to break the setup.

@Bob

: I'm having difficulty understanding your thought process from a reread. There's the occasional question, but few explanations as to why you're making the votes you're making (apart from the vote on Hanzo). Was the vote on PhD pre-replacement a deadline lynch, or something else?

@Klick/serrapaladin

: I go onto more detail on this slot later in this post, and I'm mostly interested in your reactions to it. I'm also partly interested in more elaboration on your reads at around the time you replaced in (especially your reads on the players you don't mention), although I appreciate it if you can't remember any more.

@DarkLightA/Mac

: You've done nothing but setup speculation, claiming and waffle since… #268? (With the exception of #480.) Do you have any reads at the moment based on anything other than claims?

@yessiree

: To fit the site's rules, this setup must have at least 2 scum. You're in a 1v1 with Mac, but what are your opinions on who the other scum is/are?

There's some derpiness all around wrt the setup. Mac and yessiree are in a 1v1 here (even if Mac doen't realise it due to apparently not understanding what a vanilliser does), but what's interesting me more is serrapaladin, who a) thinks my slot is scum, but b) thinks my slot's claim to be 1-shot unlynchable is entirely trustworthy. There seems to be a conflict here; such an obvious dissonance makes me feel really bad about a slot.

I'd also like to reply to #555 specifically. Assuming (as you seem to) that I'm a member of a 2-man scumgroup that has a kill (regardless of what you think about unlynchability), and that there's also a third-party arsonist (regardless of who if anyone they've primed), and there are only three townies left (i.e. only half the remaining game is town), I find it very hard to see how you'd expect town to win at all even with perfect setup knowledge. Lynching the arsonist doesn't work in that scenario, but nor would lynching anyone else (e.g. say you lynch someone you think is scum and lynchable, then it's 3:1:1 at night with asymmetrical scumteams, which is not a town win with any kill pattern I can think of because asymmetrical scumteams cannot be affected by the Prisoner's Gambit (or any of my crazy variations of it)).

Or to put this another way, serrapaladin: if you assume the setup is a 6:2:1 where both scumteams are capable of killing, you've already lost (and incidentally, the setup is badly unbalanced with the power that's been claimed). Therefore, any plan based on this is completely pointless. You should be aiming to win in the situations where winning is still possible.

BTW, not voting yet due to the possibility it's lylo, but my current opinion is that there's a 2-player scumteam of serrapaladin/Mac (I have no real idea on what specific flavour of scumteam that is, but can't really see a way that it matters; we want to lynch them as soon as possible ASAP). This fits serrapaladin's dissonance (he knows my 1-shot unlynchability is correctly claimed because he knows I'm town, but is trying to act like I'm scum anyway in an attempt to gain a mislynch); and it explains how serrapaladin's recent play seems mostly targeted at avoiding a Mac lynch. #472 is also consistent with this theory (I read it as "I don't want to lynch Mac, but if I flip, I wanted him to be lynched all along), as is #454 (read as attacking a scumbuddy for reasons they can easily refute).


Finally, about the setup, because setup speculation is rampant enough as it is and seems to be relevant this game. I think 6:2:1 is unlikely because it's very hard to balance, but if I

were

trying to balance it, I'd make nightkills very hard to come by (which is pretty much what's happened so far). 7:2 is much more common, but in such a case, we have to workout why there have been no kills. One thing that I noticed before I replaced in is the ability for most of the roles to be "inadvertent mountainous" (that is, they technically have night actions, but they don't do anything useful): we might have a Captain that controls a Cop/Miller for a faction that doesn't exist, a Firefighter with no fires to fight, and so on. That doesn't explain yessiree's claim or my role, though.

I don't think inadvertent mountainous can be the case, though. 6:2 nightless is approximately theoretically balanced, meaning 7:2 with an Alien faction (1 nightkill total) is also approximately theoretically balanced (it's scumsided but marginally so), and this fits most of the theory, but then it becomes townsided because we have a perfectly functional Conspiracy Theorist. My unlynchability also implies, to me, that there's some sort of possibility envisaged in the setup where the town need to have a chance to get back into the game after what would otherwise be a mislynch in lylo, which normally in turn implies that there's some sort of not-entirely-controlled vigilante. I guess another reasonable possibility is 7:2 with Arsonist scum that have a shared night action (they can only send in one prime or ignite total per night); in such a situation, the setup is currently 4:2 with two primes (and the setup balanced around currently being 5:2 with two primes, because it can't have envisaged a replaced-out player modkilling their slot after the replace), making today a perfectly ordinary lylo (or mylo if one of the primes was on a dead player; if both of them were, something is really off in the scumteam's targeting). In that setup, yessiree would pretty much have to be town purely based on setup balance reasons.

[callforjudgement]

@call:
Thank god, you mostly talk sense.

The reason I believe your role is probably correct is because it features as an alien role on the Greater Idea role list, which bb linked. I could see implosion claiming the town version of it as alien, or bb giving it to town-implosion as a red herring, but I highly doubt implosion would choose to fakeclaim it. In particular, lynchproof invites the town to test the claim (e.g. if they would otherwise no-lynch) so it'd be a pretty horrible fakeclaim.

Your utility argument is actually a very interesting one I did consider, but I think 6-2-1 and 7-2 (alien) are both possible, and in both cases trying to get an alien lynch is the right thing to do. Even 6-2-1 is still winnable unless all scum kills land perfectly.

No, it isn't, not in the current gamestate. If the game started 6:2:1, it's currently 3:2:1. Given that we have overwhelming evidence that the scumgroups are asymmetrical in their killing ability (there are two of them in a Micro and nobody's died overnight yet), and thus the Prisoner's Gambit can't be used even as a last resort, town cannot win a 3:1:1, 3:2, 3:2:1, or 2:2:1 going into night (barring a 3:2 if the 2-man scumteam has no killing ability at all, but you seem convinced that that isn't the case, given that you feel one lynch). Thus no matter who you lynch, you lose.

The only case in which Mac is the correct lynch is if he is part of a two-man arsonist team. Unfortunately, the prior for that is extraordinarily low: Two roles involve aliens, arsonists are (almost?) always third-party, and BB deliberately linked the Greater Idea Role PM's and mentioned roles are based on those. To suggest that the scumteam is a faction not even on that list is really quite ridiculous. If this were the case, literally only ONE of the roles in the game would be from Greater idea. Peddling ridiculously unlikely theories to fit your reads is the very definition of confirmation bias, and it needs to stop.

On the contrary, so far none of the roles that have actually flipped have been Greater Idea roles, which rather reduces the chance that the rest are. BB mentioned that the role

PMs

are based on Greater Idea PMs, which I interpret as "the PMs are written in this style" rather than "these are the roles that might exist", and possibly "if there's a corner case in a role, it's resolved the same way as Greater Idea". Most of the claims aren't from Greater Idea, either, including yours (there is no Visitor on the list).

Or to put it another way, we currently have the following flips/claims from the playerlist as a whole:

• Bert: Firefighter
  
• Aegor: Compulsive Self-Vanillizer
  
• Hanzo_5: Compulsive Self-Vanillizer
  
• Alduskkel: Captain
  
• Bob: Compulsive Loyal
  Conspiracy Theorist
  Ensign
  
• callforjudgement:
  1-shot Unlynchable
  
  
• Mac: Compulsive Self-Vanillizer
  
• serrapaladin: Compulsive Visitor
  
• yessiree: Follower

I've bolded the roles, or role components, that actually exist in Greater Idea Mafia. Even assuming that up to three of the players here are lying, almost half the roles don't come from that setup.

Finally, I'd be very surprised if BBmolla felt any compulsion at all to stick to only the role/alignment options listed on the page. I remember Worst Role Mafia, where izakthegoomba specifically stated that he intended to base roles on those in the Worst Roles Idea thread, but left himself open to alignment-flipping them if necessary for balance and just to avoid spoilers.

Also, I'm interested in your "two roles involve aliens" statement, given that I only see one there (Conspiracy Theorist) which does. The only other role is Alduskkel, who as a Captain is automatically aware of the role (but not identity) of all Ensigns, and thus would be able to see the mention of Aliens in the description of bob's PM.

Regarding your 7:2 balancing, call, you're overlooking the distribution of PR's. 1-kill 7:2 with cop is probably townsided, but one (or possibly even both if you're actually town) of yessiree and aldi would be scum. If scum control the target of the cop (or could even bait a claim from him), I don't think it's so unbalanced any more.

1-kill 7:2 with a full cop is townsided. There's quite a few modifiers piled on Bob's role, though; Ensign means he can't choose his targets (Alduskkel has to choose for him), I've never seen Loyal before but I'd guess it means that he can't refuse to use the ability if asked (and may not be able to choose a target independently if not asked), and the scan only detects one faction, which may or may not exist.

If we do have an investigative role, it's much more likely yessiree's than Bob's. A Follower is around as powerful as a Tracker for catching scum.

@Mac

: What is your opinion on serrapaladin's alignment?

One other thing I thought about: does vanillization remove priming?

@Mod

: If an Arsonist primed/doused a player, and later that player was vanillized, and after that the Arsonist attempted to ignite, would that player die as a result?

[callforjudgement]

People who haven't responded to my replacing in yet, where are you? It's been 24 hours, and this is quite possibly lylo.

@Bob, thanks for your reasoning. I've been ISOing you and comparing it with your comments, and I think I broadly agree.

Something I noticed ISOing was the conspiracy theorist results, which I hadn't paid much attention to before. Given that they're on the two people who I think are most likely scum (serra and Mac), that seems like a reasonably good indicator that we're not looking at an Alien scumteam, making Bob/Alduskkel into what are effectively Fruit Vendors who can only target each other (i.e. the only purpose in their roles is to confirm their roles to each other, and to anyone who follows Bob).

I think it's almost impossible for Bob to be scum at this point, but one last possibility I want to check:

@Alduskkel

: Were you aware, as a result of your Captain role, that Bob was an Alien-miller (before he claimed it in thread)?

[callforjudgement]

No, it isn't, not in the current gamestate. If the game started 6:2:1, it's currently 3:2:1. Given that we have overwhelming evidence that the scumgroups are asymmetrical in their killing ability (there are two of them in a Micro and nobody's died overnight yet), and thus the Prisoner's Gambit can't be used even as a last resort, town cannot win a 3:1:1, 3:2, 3:2:1, or 2:2:1 going into night (barring a 3:2 if the 2-man scumteam has no killing ability at all, but you seem convinced that that isn't the case, given that you feel one lynch). Thus no matter who you lynch, you lose.

3:1:1 is winnable, and I think some of the others might too (except 3:2). If we go into the night 3:1:1, the only way for the game to be over tomorrow is if 3 kills happen (and even then a mutual cross-kill would give a town-win). 3 kills will only occur if both scum factions decide to use their kill and none of the arsonist primes from the previous 2 nights overlap with any of the lynches or the alien kill, which is actually fairly unlikely.

If we go into the night 3:1:1, and even 1 kill occurs overnight, that leaves the setup as 2:1:1. That setup is a town win if the scumteam can crosskill, and a scum win if they can't (because town can't survive the lynch of anyone during the day and if there's a no lynch, scum won't move the setup to 2:1 because they know they'd lose it). I did forget the possibility of one scum killing another tonight, though, which rather invalidates my reasoning. I nonetheless don't believe the setup is actually 6:2:1, though, and don't think there's any evidence it is.

I'm not saying BB would be compelled to stick to roles/alignments of the page, just that in the balance of things a 2-man arsonist team is very unlikely. The Captain and Conspiracy Theorist are both alien-related roles (i.e. roles that would be red herrings if we have no aliens).

I'm leaning towards mac's derping being town, so yessiree is scum (follower or perhaps rolecop) framing him. I don't think both investigative roles would be controlled by scum, so the second scum is probably CFJ.

@cfj: why is bob almost certainly town if his role isn't actually pro-town?

These two questions actually have the same answer. The Conspiracy Theorist is not, in fact, entirely useless; there's a Follower in the game, and thus yessiree could confirm Bob's role any time they wanted (it would show up as being investigative on a Follow). The setup seems to be balanced entirely around the Follower, in fact; I'm guessing it's being balanced much like a Gunsmith (with "misc" being the guilty result), with some false positives and clear negatives thrown in. (This explains why "self-vanilliser" rather than "vanilla townie"; it nerfs the investigative role by preventing it getting reliable results Night 1). In fact, Bob is soft-confirmable in multiple ways (by the Follower and the Captain). Combined with my role, this gives me the feeling that the setup designer (presumably the mod) wanted to help the town aim lynches early, which is consistent with the fact that there have been no nightkills early (i.e. there's a larger playerlist to lynch from than normal, so town needs some help). Finally, pretty much nobody but Tarharlindur and Vi would consider putting a Mafia Miller into the setup while telling another townie that that player is a miller (and only Tarharlindur would actually

do

it). It adds a huge layer of complexity for no good reason at all. (It's pretty much impossible for both Alduskkel and Bob to be scum, because we know that at least one of Mac and yessiree is scum, and I can't believe that there are three scum without you being one of them.)

The other reason I think Bob is town is purely based on play, without any setup speculation involved. I read his entire ISO in the light of his responses to my questions, looking for something to ask further, along the lines of "but if you were thinking X, why did you do Y?". I didn't find anything at all that made me suspicious.

[callforjudgement]

Err, Follower is like Tracker, not Gunsmith. It doesn't catch scum who aren't performing the kill (assuming it's some sort of delayed action kill because we haven't had any nightkills yet, most likely arsonist because of the Firefighter flip).

[callforjudgement]

(that post was me correcting my own post #627, upon rereading it after seeing the thread had been updated)

[callforjudgement]

Mac, while you're here, care to answer my questions?

[callforjudgement]

Yeah, part of the reason I think you're scum is that there's no obvious partner for Yessiree. serra/yessiree is possible, but as you've noticed, you're rather more linked to serra than yessiree is (hyposcum-serra not pushing your lynch is most easily explained via you being his scumbuddy). Alduskkel/yessiree is the only other team I'm even prepared to consider in which you're town.

BTW, what sort of scumteam do you think we have this game, based on the lack of kills?

[callforjudgement]

Why would Aliens fakeclaim roles that specifically interact with Aliens? There's a very high chance of getting counterclaimed, because there are so few roles that do that. This is much the same way as it'd be utterly stupid for an Arsonist to fakeclaim Firefighter, because there's a really high chance you're just going to get counterclaimed.

Anyway, I think this is enough information to set out my case for the rest of the game (given that it's probably lylo, we need to consider scumpairs today). I believe the scumteam is serrapaladin and Mac, and there's lots of evidence of this (although I also consider the other possibilities as well, at least partly because I think I'm tunneling). This is pretty much regardless of the nature of the scumteam, although Aliens is impossible (you don't put in a faction-specific cop and then make all members of that faction Godfathers if you want your game to be remotely balanced.) Arsonists is a strong possibility, because there have been no nightkills yet and there's been a Firefighter flip, both of which make that seem like a likely scumteam.

The Case for scumpairs: Setup speculation reasoning

Out of the 9 players we have, the only parts of roles that are potentially useful for Town in terms of their active abilities (as opposed to getting Followed):

• Firefighter (Bert, flipped town)
  
• Follower (yessiree)
  
• Conspiracy Theorist (Bob)
  
• 1-shot unlynchable (me) is useful only if there's an attempt to lynch me and town benefits from having a lynch stopped.

Visitor is negative utility, Self-Vanillizer is mostly useless and serves mainly to nerf a Follower, and Captain is basically just indirect knowledge about the setup in a setup like this one.

Additionally, there's very strong evidence that the Conspiracy Theorist is incapable of finding a useful result. If we have aliens as scum, then serrapaladin and Mac are both town via investigation; Bob can't get a useful result if Alduskkel is an alien because Alduskkel chooses the target; Bob is not an Alien unless Aldusskel has reason to lie about his role (Aldusskel has mod information that Bob is an Alien miller); leaving only yessiree/me as the only possible scumteam on the claims given. The setup arranged like that does appear to be approximately balanced, though (there's a weakened Cop who can fail to act due to the Cop or Captain dying, balanced – if you take my and yessiree's claims as true – via a scum role that can find the Cop, and an unlynchability that doesn't help mathematically but may mislead town when it activates). I know I'm not scum, but for everyone else who wants to discount this possibility, I'm happy to answer questions, and would refer to the game's dayplay so far, in addition to some reasoning below.

If we discount the Conspiracy Theorist as a useful role for town, then we have to assume a scum faction that's limited in its ability to nightkill somehow (either it doesn't have one, or it's Arsonist-based, or perhaps something more exotic). Against this, we have a Firefighter (only useful against arsonists). If we then assume that yessiree is scum, and the scumteam has a Follower, Rolecop, or anything else that could allow them to reliably fake Arsonist results, the only conclusion is that the scum has no nightkill of any kind; it seems very likely that they're not one-nightkill-per-game because we discounted Aliens earlier. Note that, and #351 shows that yessiree knew serra's action via role information or being scum with him (it happened before the Visitor claim, and roleclaiming an investigative role unprompted with a blind guess about what happened is not a very high percentage play). If we assume that yessiree is town, which makes much more sense from a balance perspective, then Mac is scum due to having been caught lying about his role.

In short, the

only

sensible scumteams based on setup analysis:

• Me + yessiree
  
• yessiree + serrapaladin
  
• Mac + anyone but yessiree

Klick (serrapaladin slot) has essentially claimed to be a miller for Followers (in #360, after yessiree claimed). Miller claims are rather suspect, especially given that there'd be no point in including a follow-miller if the Folllower were scum. I cite this as evidence that yessiree is town and thus I'm town too. What about the yessiree + serrapaladin team? This would require one member of a scumteam to claim a guilty, and the other to claim miller in response to that. This seems to me to be an incredibly unlikely strategy for a 2-man scumteam to try; the risk is very large and the payoff is pretty small, given that it mostly just makes serrapaladin look scummier. As such, on setup speculation basis, I think serrapaladin + yessiree is unlikely.

So if yessiree is town, we know Mac is scum. Who's the scumbuddy? There's no strong setup speculation evidence that it's serrapaladin, but some weak evidence (the setup doesn't really make that much sense with a Visitor on the town side if the scum are Arsonists, because a follow-miller doesn't help balance much there, although the resulting setup is still tolerable; the setup with Bob as an Arsonist is just stupid, so that leaves Aldusskel or me as the other possibilities, and I'd have to be fake-claiming if I were scum because a 1-shot unlynchability on an Arsonist is really unbalancing).

The Case for serrapaladin/Mac: Dayplay reasoning

Some scumtells coming from the slots in question (many of these are weak, but they add up):

• Mac's claim is incredibly unsure, looking like it's an attempt to copy the "VT-equivalent" town claim rather than reading a PM to be sure: #425
  
• Mac has painted himself into a corner with reads (#255 has both me and yessiree as town, and we'd both need to be scum for him to be reasonable as town; he didn't say much else on the subject until #575 for yessiree, and didn't say anything about me until the very recent #636); running out of reads is more likely for scum (who have more knowledge of the setup and so are more sure in their townreads), than it is for town (who don't know much at all)
  
• Both Mac and serra have come up with very implausible theories about the setup (e.g. serra's 6:2:1 theory, or Mac's suggestion of a Bob/Aldi Alien scumteam in the previous post
  while he's in a 1v1 and thus knows that's not the case
  ); this is a scumtell in my experience because town tend to have little enough information that they consider likely theories first, and scum can get onto unlikely theories much more quickly if they know something weird's going on, and serra admits this is a scumtell in #549; serra's #621 is particularly weird because nobody else considers serra's setup theories plausible, which should be a sign that maybe those theories are wrong, rather than that they're trying to ignore evidence
  
• serra and Mac have been suspicious of each other earlier (e.g. #454, #439), but are now easing off on each other now that it's probably lylo, without much reasoning (especialy Mac; see #636 for a reasonably blatant case, where he decides serra is town based on serra backing off of him, when he's short of townreads; that could also be read as scum-Mac attempting to buddy town-serra, though)
  
• Mac unvotes in #254, an action that (given the timing and the players waiting to hammer) probably prevented serrapaladin's slot being lynched that Day
  
• Both Mac and serrapaladin are voting for yessiree, meaning that if there isn't at least one scum in {Mac, serrapaladin, yessiree}, an Arsonist scumteam would be able to quickhammer for the win if they had two currently living townies doused
  
• Also one other point that I don't want to bring up just yet, but will talk about later (and explain why I didn't bring it up just yet)

On another, setup-speculatory, note, I'd like to point out that I only just realised that the 2 kill-less scum + Arsonist 6:2:1 setup is completely impossible in terms of the mod-provided knowledge about the setup; this game is no-lynch at deadline, meaning that if all the killing roles died, town could just sit there no-lynching and night-actioning and scum would not be able to do anything about it.

Finally, I've realised that because this is not a traditional lylo situation (in that there are 6 alive but unlikely to be more than 2 scum), so I can actually place a vote without risking quickhammers (so long as it's on a player who currently has no votes for them). I believe in always having a vote out so as to make myself easier to read, and of the scumteam I'm reading, only one member has no votes currently:

VOTE: serrapaladin

[callforjudgement]

Good analysis, but why'd you pick serra over Mac?

serra had no votes before I voted, so less quickhammer risk, and I didn't work out the scumteams that would have to exist for a quickhammer to happen; it's just a theory thing for me to avoid allowing quickhammer situations when there's plenty of time before deadline, no matter how unlikely.

Some other questions:
What do you think the scumteam is (Arsonists, Aliens, no factional kill at all...?) If Arsonists, then why did Mac perform the dousing instead of serra?

I think Aliens is impossible. Arsonists seems most likely because we have one role hinting at it and no kills yet. No-factional-kill isn't compatible with this game's deadline rules (unless BBmolla really screwed up, which is possible but unlikely); additionally, my lynchproofness doesn't make much sense in a game with no nightkills (given that its main use in a setup is to give the town a chance to recover if something goes really screwy with nightkills). I think there's a possibility of some sort of other screwy nightkill scumteam, of some nature that hasn't been suggested yet, but I don't have any idea as to what it might be.

I hadn't considered the "why did Mac perform the dousing" issue, though, and it's a good one. Certainly, Mac would want to in order to maintain his mistaken beliefs about his fakeclaim worked, but serra should have corrected that in the QT; serra seems unlikely make the same mistake Mac did. It's possible that serra/Mac have an unclaimed action that they needed/wanted to take, leaving the other to perform the "kill", but that also seems unlikely. So in short, I have no idea what's going on there.

Why was Mac such a derp with his claim? It almost reads like really really dumb Town (no offense Mac), although yessiree's guilty still close to seals Mac as scum to me.

Normally, VT is a pretty safe claim for scum in a massclaim; you don't think about it too much, you just say it. That's consistent with the way that Mac's been acting. I don't think it's unbelievable to imagine that a player might get very confused among discovering that VTs didn't act the way they thought they did. This can happen with town too, though, so I think the main upshot is that we learn that Mac likely still believed yessiree to be town at the time (regardless of what he might say he thought after the fact).

[callforjudgement]

@Mod

: I'm voting for serrapaladin, not yessiree.

Just in case:
UNVOTE:
VOTE: serrapaladin

[callforjudgement]

let me take the time to dismantle your post callforjudgement because I won't lie, it's a whole load of shit.

Mac's claim is incredibly unsure, looking like it's an attempt to copy the "VT-equivalent" town claim rather than reading a PM to be sure: #425

I don't get what your point is. It's pretty clear I was in a hurry since I announced a V/LA in the very same place, and why, as scum, would I throw it down as though I wasn't sure of it? Makes no sense.

"Why would I commit objective scumtell X?" is an invalid argument. If you know something is an objective scumtell, you avoid it as both scum and town.

Mac has painted himself into a corner with reads (#255 has both me and yessiree as town, and we'd both need to be scum for him to be reasonable as town; he didn't say much else on the subject until #575 for yessiree, and didn't say anything about me until the very recent #636); running out of reads is more likely for scum (who have more knowledge of the setup and so are more sure in their townreads), than it is for town (who don't know much at all)

255 was on d1 before claims and such, therefore your pushing old data there. plus it's pretty obvious I don't really know what's going on besides yesiree scum which I've made clear - that would make me town in your crazy little world where town are less sure of there reads..

It's some of your newest reads

despite

being old data.

Both Mac and serra have come up with very implausible theories about the setup (e.g. serra's 6:2:1 theory, or Mac's suggestion of a Bob/Aldi Alien scumteam in the previous post while he's in a 1v1 and thus knows that's not the case); this is a scumtell in my experience because town tend to have little enough information that they consider likely theories first, and scum can get onto unlikely theories much more quickly if they know something weird's going on, and serra admits this is a scumtell in #549; serra's #621 is particularly weird because nobody else considers serra's setup theories plausible, which should be a sign that maybe those theories are wrong, rather than that they're trying to ignore evidence

This is pretty fucking shitty of you considering you

asked for my opinion on reads or scumteams

and even furthermore boosted by the fact I said both were unlikely scum, so I've never pushed an Aldi/Bob alien team and this is just lies.

serra and Mac have been suspicious of each other earlier (e.g. #454, #439), but are now easing off on each other now that it's probably lylo, without much reasoning (especialy Mac; see #636 for a reasonably blatant case, where he decides serra is town based on serra backing off of him, when he's short of townreads; that could also be read as scum-Mac attempting to buddy town-serra, though)

I've also CLEARLY addressed this that I don't think scum serra would back off me when I was flailing like a fish out of water and basically an easy mislynch if he pushed it. His back off seems genuine. MOAR MISREP.

If you're scum with serra, you're not an easy mislynch, because lynching you wouldn't be a mislynch at all. Your argument here is equivalent to "you said I'm scum, but I said I was town, so that's a misrep".

Mac unvotes in #254, an action that (given the timing and the players waiting to hammer) probably prevented serrapaladin's slot being lynched that Day

hahaha, I had

just

replaced into the game? now you're just pushing things that clearly aren't scummy?

It's not a strong tell, but it isn't surprising that someone replacing in would want to unvote their scumbuddy pretty quickly, when they had a good opportunity to do so.

If you hadn't unvoted, serra's slot would almost certainly have been lynched, given that there was a hammer intent there.

[callforjudgement]

One thing I have been considering is how cfj's role fits into this. As town, it doesn't really seem to have much utility outside of quicklynch baiting in MyLo, but if he were an arsonist, his role would allow him an additional night to douse/ignite.

Please think about what you're saying here. If I (or any other player) were a 1-shot unlynchable arsonist, then (given that this site's definition of Mafia requires at least two scum on the same team) the setup would currently be either 3:2:1 (if the arsonist's a third party), or 4:2 (if the arsonists are a scum group). In the latter case, you can't lynch the arsonists until after they've already won the game, because they're guaranteed to be able to get a douse and an ignite off and almost certainly have at least one player doused (with two opportunities to douse and only two players dead since the first dousing). The former case is really screwy (and doesn't fit with the deadline rules, although there's always a chance that those are simply just screwed up). In general, if a role is overpowered as scum, it's not going to go to scum.

Also, this argument looks a lot like "but BBmolla wouldn't add roles that do nothing" in a setup with a Compulsive Visitor, players who can only vanillise themselves, and either a Conspiracy Theorist or a Firefighter whose role ability targets a faction that doesn't exist (unless you're still seriously arguing 6:2:1, which I refuse to believe without much better evidence because it's mindbogglingly hard to balance and doesn't fit well with the evidence we actually have).

1-shot lynchproof is also an alien role, and cfj/yessiree's interaction fits the mould much better. Since replacing in, cfj hasn't had any interaction with yessiree that would help him figure out yessiree's alignment, which I would expect given how he immediately identifies the mac/yessiree 1v1.

Seriously, if you're town, please stop with the "this role is in Greatest Idea therefore it must be correct" reasoning, given how few roles actually come from there. Are you fakeclaiming because you claimed a role that isn't in Greatest Idea? Also, it seems weird to me that you seem so certain that I wasn't fakeclaiming with the unlynchable claim (although not quite as weird as I thought, because I've been running through the possibilities for unlynchable trueclaims and fakeclaims as town and scum to determine what the claim looks like from your point of view, and concluded that while from town it's almost guaranteed to be a trueclaim, scum who actually are unlynchable are quite likely to trueclaim it, and scum who are not unlynchable are not that likely to fakeclaim it). In fact, you seem to be generally assuming all claims are honest (e.g. #670, where you assume yessiree trueclaimed about being a follower).

If yessiree is scum, then the scumteam probably has no kill at all (possibly a 1-shot vig owned by a

specific

scum player). If they have the ability to kill repeatedly, even via a method as clunky as Arsonist, then given that we've seen no nightkills yet, the setup is too scumsided to be likely to exist (given that town has no roles useful in finding scum in that scenario, with the only real town advantage being that Alduskkel knows enough about Bob's role to have a good suspicion that he's town). If the scumteam have a factional 1-shot kill, then they're Aliens, and now town is underpowered if either Alduskkel or Bob is scum, and the action results don't make sense if they're both town (we know that Serra and Mac aren't aliens from investigation results, Aldusskel and Bob aren't aliens by assumption), unless the Alien team is me/yessiree (it isn't). If the scumteam has no kill at all, yessiree as scum makes more sense (and could reasonably be scum with Mac, Aldusskel, or serrapaladin), although the setup's probably still scumsided in that case because town has no roles that actually do anything (and yessiree's role could well be a fakeclaim).

WRT the interaction, I asked yessiree a question upon replacing in, and the answer was interesting (given that yessiree pretty much entirely goes along with my theory about the current scumteam). To me, this implies that either yessiree is scum, or my guess at the scumteam is correct (or at least, if yessiree is town, town is unlikely to win unless the scumteam is serrapaladin/Mac, because other lynches are unlikely to happen.). I wasn't sure about that, and I wasn't sure about Mac/serra either, so I decided to run an experiment. I genuinely believed (and still do) that Mac/serra was the most likely scumteam, and laid out my case in as much detail as was reasonable; this was partly to help people follow my thought processes (which I consider a good way to help people read me correctly when I'm town), and partly to serve as an easy reference for helping to push the lynch if I decided it was completely correct. However, it was also a vehicle to do something I rarely get the chance to do (because being able to vote in probable lylo is rare, and mostly only possible due to the weirdness of the setup): I got to put a vote on serrapaladin. I admit to not telling the whole truth (in fact, being somewhat intentionally misleading) in my first paragraph of #646. Why did I vote for serra? Well, yes, it was because I could do so safely, but I could almost certainly vote for Mac safely too (the most likely scumteam in which voting for Mac could cause a quicklynch is Aldusskel/yessiree, and in such a circumstance, they likely wouldn't win by doing so due to that scumteam being unlikely to have a kill). No, the reason I voted for serrapaladin is because I wanted to see how serrapaladin would react. In order for the test to work, I also had to focus mostly on serra over the next few posts, because the test wouldn't work unless the vote seemed genuine. (The fact that it

was

genuine helps it to

seem

genuine, but it helps to make sure your motivations are perceived correctly.)

Throughout most of the game, scum have more to lose by being lynched than town do. In lylo, the situation is reversed; town lose if they're lynched (or any other townie is lynched, but they're more vehement arguing against their own lynch because they

know

their lynch loses the game), but scum get a second chance. Thus, voting someone in lylo, when you can get away with it, is a useful source of tells.

I would get the most useful results from the test if serra was town, and perceived me to be town. The typical "please don't throw the game" behaviour you get in that situation is quite hard to fake. This would be the best outcome, and one that I was hoping for, but I agree it was unlikely (and it didn't happen). It did produce useful results from someone else though: I think #642 pretty much completely wipes out the chance of an Alduskkel/yessiree scum team, and (not as strongly, but still quite strongly) implies that Alduskkel is town regardless of yessiree's alignment. There'd be no reason for Alduskkel to point out the flaws in my reasoning otherwise (they weren't put there intentionally, they were things I genuinely hadn't considered), except maybe if Alduskkel were scum with Mac (in which case he might want to go for the win toda hasn'ty by persuading me to mislynch, but it's unclear who exactly he'd be trying to get me to mislynch).

I nonetheless got useful results from serra (and Mac, which was a bonus). #651 from Mac is clearly treating me as scum. The tone of that post isn't the sort of language you use to try to defend yourself from what you think is a mistaken accusation coming from a townie. It's the sort of language you use when you're trying to get someone lynched. Mac hasn't outright said "let's make this a 1v1" (especially given that he's already in another 1v1), but I got that impression from his post.

serrapaladin, on the other hand, doesn't seem to be reading me as scum (or town, or anything else) based on play; his defences against my push have been entirely theory-based. We can both do the theory calculations, and we can both come to the same results on them (although serra seems to come up with a bunch of implausible extra results that I'm rejecting, most likely because he doesn't like the results he gets): the most plausible scumteams, on a theory basis, are by far serrapaladin/Mac (Arsonist) and me/yessiree (Alien). Still, serrapaladin seems to have stopped there, and just concluded that me and yessiree must be Alien scum purely based on the theory. He isn't trying to scumhunt by other means, and he isn't trying to make a non-theory-based case on me or yessiree (read serra's iso: his arguments for yessiree-scum are entirely based on Mac-town, until very recently where he claims lack of interaction with me). The reason that this is worrying is that his thought process seems to have gone as far as "work out who I should be voting under the assumption I'm town → it must be yessiree/CFJ → downplay all the other possibilities (especially the one where I'm scum) as ridiculous". The situation's effectively a 2v2, especially from serrapaladin's point of view. However, getting into a 2v2 isn't enough by itself. You actually have to try to

win

it, and serra seems to be leaving this stage out.

Is this an indicator of scumminess? It's actually mostly an indicator of laziness, although I think it's a weak scumtell too. As town, if you're in a 1v1 or a 2v2, you at least have the benefit of knowing for certain that the other player's scum. Having the unsureness taken away is pretty liberating for town, in that you don't have to focus on scum

hunting

any more, but scum

proving

. As scum, it's much more annoying (I've been in this situation more than once before as scum, and although I can handle it, it's a lot of pressure): you can't work on trying to get just anyone lynched any more, you have to focus on someone in particular, which may even require reversing your read on them. So town's more likely to go through with the effort. I won't claim it's a strong tell, though.

I should note that I had a range of possible reactions in mind when I voted for serra, and this wasn't one of them, so I'm a little out of touch on the theory of this test and don't know for certain what the result means. It isn't something that invalidates my theory, though.


The remaining question, of course, is "is this actually a 2v2?". I have a tendency to tunnel, so I want to make sure that all the possibilities are covered. We have 1v1 based on night action results between Mac and yessiree, so there are 9:

• Mac / Alduskkel
  : I haven't found anything that completely rules this possibility out (either in terms of night actions, in terms of setup spec, or in terms of dayplay). This is a long way down my mental list of pairings due mostly to dayplay, but I have no strong evidence.
  
• Mac / Bob
  : I can't really imagine Bob as scum, and Alduskkel's role doesn't make much sense in this setup.
  
• Mac / callforjudgement
  : Nobody seems to have suggested this one yet, and it's quite hard for me to make dayplay analyses based on the assumption that I'm scum. In terms of the setup and night actions, this is impossible with an Alien scumteam (based on Bob's investigation results). Assuming Arsonists, this is even worse at explaining the fact that yessiree was able to catch Mac in a lie than Mac / serrapaladin; implosion was well aware of how self-vanillizers worked (#356, well before the last night phase).
  
• Mac / serrapaladin
  : See discussion over the last few pages.
  
• Mac / yessiree
  : Not impossible based on dayplay, but leaves the setup a little unclear; what sort of kill do the scumteam have? They can't be Aliens, based on night results, and if they're Arsonists, town is too weak. Perhaps something else?
  
• Alduskkel / yessiree
  : Possible via setup speculation (the setup would have Alduskkel as an Alien captain, yessiree as an Alien pretty much anything who might or might not be fakeclaiming; as an aside, Bob's role is hilarious in that setup), but I think this is impossible based on dayplay, e.g. #642.
  
• Bob / yessiree
  : This makes even less sense than Mac / Bob, because Bob is still just as townish, and the setup is even sillier than usual (scum millers?)
  
• callforjudgement / yessiree
  : Possible via setup speculation. I'll let serrapaladin make the case for this in terms of dayplay; neither him nor me can be expected to make the case in an unbiased fashion, but a bias in favour of the case will make for a better argument than a bias against.
  
• serrapaladin / yessiree
  : Serra's not an Alien, and if yessiree is an Arsonist, town doesn't have enough power to have a reasonable chance to win. So this is unlikely based on setup speculation. It seems unlikely that serra would be defending Mac so hard in this setup, too.

Incidentally, this analysis also means that (if my vote isn't needed to observe reactions) it makes more sense to have Mac as the day's lynch over serra; it works just as well in terms of actually lynching scum, and better in the (unlikely but possible) case of Mac/Alduskkel, especially as the specific nature of the scum that flips will help inform the lynch for tomorrow.

I'm happy to make this into a 1v1 between me and Mac, anyway. In any situation where Mac is town, I don't see town winning anyway. It's almost a 2v2, but there's an outside chance that serra's innocent even with Mac guilty.

Anyway, I think that pretty much finishes the setup spec arguments for this game, at least until we have a flip. You can get into a 1v1 via night actions or setup speculation just fine. However, only dayplay can actually

resolve

one.

VOTE: Mac

[callforjudgement]

yessiree, could you please communicate in more than one-liners? It's hard to tell what you're thinking when you hardly say anything.

PEDIT: serra, I disagree with your reasoning. It's perfectly reasonable on theory grounds for you to be groupscum with Mac, and much less reasonable for us to have three scum (even split across two factions).

How will you react if Mac is lynched, flips Arsonist, and the game doesn't end overnight, by the way? Would you consider that a reasonable/possible outcome?

[callforjudgement]

Finally, your analysis of why it couldn't be a mac/you scumteam is too shallow. implosion was obviously aware of how self-vanillisers work, but he was also replaced first thing D3, so it would stand to reason he could have simply been absent over night. Your whole thing about trying to analyse scum-teams from a "neutral" perspective is fake.

I actually considered this point specifically, but didn't mention it. Not because it didn't support my position, but because I checked and implosion posted on D3 (to request replacement).

After your post, I checked implosion's previous post too, and it was late on D2, around 5 days earlier. That means that implosion went about 2 days between posts, discounting time spent in Night. He also spent about 2 days between posts late on D2.

We can thus assume he would have had two opportunities to post overNight, if he had had a QT in which to do so.

So nothing conclusive here.


Let's turn this around, though, and put the argument back to you like this: Do you want to argue that there's a me/Mac scumteam? If not, why not?

[callforjudgement]

So nothing conclusive here.

Correct, but then you admit you left out a fairly large caveat when you posted this:

Mac / callforjudgement: Nobody seems to have suggested this one yet, and it's quite hard for me to make dayplay analyses based on the assumption that I'm scum. In terms of the setup and night actions, this is impossible with an Alien scumteam (based on Bob's investigation results). Assuming Arsonists,

this is even worse at explaining the fact that yessiree was able to catch Mac in a lie than Mac / serrapaladin

; implosion was well aware of how self-vanillizers worked (#356, well before the last night phase).

It's also incorrect that no one had suggested you/mac since I suggested the possibility in the post just before that.

I simply missed that.

I don't want to argue that there's a you/mac team, since you/yessiree makes much more sense in many respects, but it's not impossible. I would rank it as about as likely as yessiree/aldi.

What concerns me is that you're trying to discredit me based on rejecting the possibility of me/Mac slightly harder than I should have been, when it's already pretty hard to be objective about scumteams that you know are impossible (and I was including all the possibilities to help the players who have to decide, Alduskkel and Bob, to make up their mind). I don't know why you'd expect a difference in my attitude towards me/Mac between me as town, and me as scum with someone other than Mac; in both cases, I know the pairing isn't possible.

If you want to claim I'm scum with Mac and trying to downplay the possibility, fine. If you want to attack me over a perceived inconsistency in what I'm saying without explaining why you think it's indicative of my alignment, then you're just trying to

make people think I'm scum

rather than

trying to determine my alignment

. This would be a huge scumtell outside a 1v1/2v2. In a 1v1/2v2, it's not so much of a scumtell (because town and scum have the same motivations there), but it isn't a particularly persuasive way to make your argument.

[callforjudgement]

The problem with you exhaustively listing potential scum-pairs is that it allows you to control the narrative while seeming "neutral" in your analysis. In leaving out an important consideration about you/mac as a scum team you are giving away your slant, regardless of whether or not you and mac are scumbuddies.

What information do you gain from me considering myself to be town?

Why is yessiree/Mac scum. Go.

I've already set out my case for Mac as scum, and none of the scumteams containing yessiree make sense apart from me/yessiree, which I know is not the case. (Or to put that another way round: if you want to believe yessiree is scum, you pretty have to believe I'm scum too.) It's quite hard to scumhunt the 1v1 directly because neither Mac nor yessiree is particularly good at explaining their thought process. However, some of the posts we do have, such as #636, make me lean towards Mac as scum entirely by themself; it looks a lot like a manufactured read list (i.e. Mac concluding that they need an opinion on everyone and working out what those opinions should be), rather than anything that comes from actual critical thought about the game.

The only thing that's leaving me unsure about this is the "why did Mac action last night?" issue, which I don't think can be explained on public information (although it's easy enough to explain if Mac is lying about their role and has some sort of power role in addition to the scum designation). This is easy enough to explain if you assume that yessiree is the scum (they could just be fake-claiming), but that leaves other things unexplained (such as "where is the town power?").

[callforjudgement]

I just see the word "Image". (Quoting the post shows a link to a page on Imgur that is 404 on this connection, but that isn't surprising because Imgur has been 404 for me pretty much forever.)

As a result, I'm unable to read the part of the post you quoted. What does it say?

[callforjudgement]

I just see the word "Image". (Quoting the post shows a link to a page on Imgur that is 404 on this connection, but that isn't surprising because Imgur has been 404 for me pretty much forever.)

As a result, I'm unable to read the part of the post you quoted. What does it say?

I just got Imgur working (turns out I'd put an override for its IP in a hosts file ages ago and forgotten about it, then the IP changed).

And… it turns out to be entirely useless in understanding the sense of #697. Why am I not surprised?

serra, did you mean anything at all by #697? Or were you just trying to troll?

[callforjudgement]

Seriously, yessiree, that isn't helping. All it's doing is making the thread harder to read, adding no value to the game, and possibly annoying people into voting for you anyway despite what scumhunting tells them. I know I'd have voted you for that if we were in RVS rather than probable lylo.

What's important is "short on time until deadline". What might be important is observing the lack of quickhammer (although only Bob and serra would be in a position to do it and neither has turned up since, also both are unlikely yessiree partners). What isn't important is a wall of indecisive lizards (which I have now told my browser to block so that I can concentrate on the game rather than them).

[callforjudgement]

(Bob, for if you missed it in the wall of lizards: Alduskkel put Mac at L-1.)

[callforjudgement]

Pointing out an approaching deadline is, sadly, normally the only way that a town can be inspired to action. And today is definitely either lylo or mylo, meaning that every townie needs to vote for the same scum in order to get a lynch that doesn't immediately lose them the game.

As such, Bob's only sensible decisions right now are "vote for Mac", or "persuade someone to change their vote to yessiree". Given how much faster the first option is, if Bob wants to take the second, he'd better make his mind up pretty quickly.

[callforjudgement]

serra, quick question before we go to night. If the game continues after that hammer (as I strongly suspect it will; I'd need to be badly wrong about something for it to end), that will prove that I'm not scum with yessiree. Before you see the flip, what do you think is the most plausible explanation for the fact that the game will still be ongoing?

[callforjudgement]

Err, that is, it'll prove I'm not scum with yessiree unless the scumteam has no kill for some reason, but I don't think anyone's been arguing that a hypothetical me/yessiree scumteam would have no kill.

[callforjudgement]

I was very surprised at the kill last night, because after Mac flipped town, I assumed that we were in an "inadvertent mountainous" 7:2 nightless setup. (Although the roles we have could have an effect on the game in that setup, none of those effects would do anything useful.) However, a kill overnight changes that fact.

If there are aliens in the setup, the only possible scumteam is Aldusskel/yessiree. However, in that situation, scum should have won already. (Likewise, me/yessiree should have won already.) The only exception is if BBmolla is using very weird endgame rules.

@Mod:

If out of the four remaining players, two are town with no ability to doublevote or nightkill, and two are scum on the same team, would the game have already ended (due to town being endgamed)?

@serra:

Why did you not ask the mod the above question yourself?

If BBmolla is using an excessively literal interpretation of endgaming rules, and the scumteam is aliens, then what will happen is that yessiree will be lynched today, I'll be lynched day 6 (there's pretty much no chance I'll convince serrapaladin I'm town), and the game will become a draw because neither serra nor Aldusskel will be able to kill the other. This situation seems unlikely because the vast majority of setup reviewers I know specifically check for the possibility of that in a setup, and reject it. This is easy enough to check to, though:

@Mod:

Who reviewed the setup?

My posts to serrapaladin last twilight were because I didn't believe a scum-with-Mac serrapaladin would be able to answer them, and would likely just ignore them (pretending to be offline). I got the reaction I expected, but apparently my premises were wrong.


Clearly, something very screwy is going on here, because there's no way a 9p game should still be continuing after the death of five townies and no scum. I can see the following possibilities:

• 0 scum: the entire game was bastard and the mod is trolling us. I guess this is possible, but it's very unlikely, and in this case there's no way to play to win condition anyway so I'll disregard it.
  
• 1 scum: it must be yessiree, due to the 1v1. This is the most "normal" scenario, but there's a lot of evidence that
  
• 2 scum: probably the most likely possibility, it could be yessiree/serra as arsonists or yessiree/aldusskel as arsonists or aliens. The main problem with this theory is that the game should have ended already.
  
• 3 scum: would explain why the game hasn't ended, at least. This would probably have a third party who can kill (arsonist?), and two groupscum who can't. This would also explain why serra was considering the theory earlier (being scum, he'd have more information than anyone else). If this happens, then the only way it's theoretically possible for me to even draw is if we no-lynch, then third party kills groupscum overnight, then me+the remaining groupscum collectively lynch the third party.

@Mod:

Will you confirm that this game fulfils the site's definition of Mafia (i.e. at least two scum in the same group, and at least one towngroup that outnumbers every scumgroup)?

I'd like to hear BBmolla's answers to my questions before I vote, because they may help clarify the situation.

I'm considering two votes: yessiree, and no-lynch; which depends on the mod's answers to my questions. No-lynch is safe in pretty much every situation today; arsonists can't kill in one night, and aliens can't kill at all. (In fact, depending on the mod's answers to questions, it may be safe to no-lynch up to twice.) A yessiree lynch also makes sense because he's confirmed scum atm, but I want to establish that I wouldn't be losing the game by doing that.

[callforjudgement]

Oh, and another point. The town wincon is given in the first post, and the Alien wincon is available from the list of Greater Idea role PMs that BBmolla linked. If only Townies and Aliens are alive, then technically a no-lynch cycle is a

win

for both town and Aliens; neither faction is threatened because neither can kill the other, and both factions have a member alive.

[callforjudgement]

No lynch ain't safe for town at all. He could have doused 1 of the remaining players last night and is ready to ignite tonight should no lynch occur.

Basicall, if there IS an arsonist, the remaining townie decides who wins between arson/scum

Did you just slip that your team isn't made of arsonists?

Or can you douse and ignite in the same night?

Also, it sounds like you

want

to be lynched, and are terrified of a no-lynch. Hmm…

[callforjudgement]

I did ask bb, but he wouldn't tell me whether he's using the greater idea wincon for aliens.

Ah right, we had different ideas there. You're asking "what does

role I'm not certain is in the game

do". I'm asking "is 2 scum versus 2 town a scum win even with no kills or doublevotes in play?", which is a question about my own win condition.

I guess there's a chance your questions last twilight were genuinely trying to catch me out as scum-with-mac, but I didn't actually see them before the thread was locked, so the fact that your "expected reaction" and "what happens if I don't log on" are the same doesn't really give that much weight.

Yeah, it would have gone a lot better if Mac had flipped scum.

What situation could there possibly be in which yessiree would prefer to be lynched?

I can't think of one. Could be a stupid attempt at reverse psychology from caught scum.

I don't think 2 aliens vs. 2 town would necessarily end the game. Since aliens only have 1 kill, they can win by saving it until LyLo, not MyLo. The reason the aliens would kill bob last night is because otherwise they would have definitely lost. As is, there's at least the tiniest bit of doubt whether the second alien is aldi or cfj.

It's not me, although I realise at this point that there's no reasonable chance of convincing you of that. It doesn't matter, though; if the scum actually are Aliens, I get a draw whether we no-lynch or whether we lynch yessiree (we end up with a 2:2 happily ever after in the first case, and a 1:1 happily ever after in the second case).

lmao why are you voting, it's not like my partner is gonna bus me

Scum claim.

No lynch ain't safe for town at all. He could have doused 1 of the remaining players last night and is ready to ignite tonight should no lynch occur.

Basically, if there IS an arsonist, the remaining townie decides who wins between arson/scum

Alien claim.

I also believe this is a scum claim, and a non-arsonist claim. I'm less certain that we're in a two-alien setup, though, because I consider Alduskkel and yessiree unlikely partners based on play. (Also, why would an alien Alduskkel use Bob to clear scummy-looking players of being aliens? He could pretty simply have just ordered Bob to no-action, and then claimed something else.) I can believe some other sort of scum setup.

(We seem to have swapped opinions, incidentally. You were suggesting the weird setups yesterday, and I'm suggesting them today.)

Yessiree-scum won't be lynched today unless his partner, who is most likely cfj, busses. If we lynch someone who isn't yessiree or his buddy, they definitely win, whereas if we no-lynch, we'll get a draw by happily-ever-after.

Would you expect me to bus, as scum? Given how dead-set you are on me as scum, that would lose me the game.

[callforjudgement]

@serra: in most games, 2 scum versus 2 town is a scum win even if scum don't have a kill, so long as town don't have a kill or doublevote that could bring them back into the game. There's some evidence that BBmolla might not be using that rule, but in that case, he'll likely admit it once he's online.

It's very unlikely we have both aliens

and

arsonists; if we do, it's quite hard to explain why there haven't been more kills. Besides, in that situation, town has no chance to win. If the kill last night was by the arsonist, the aliens no-lynch today, kill an arbitrary non-alien player overnight, lynch the last player in the morning for the win. The game would definitely be over already at that point. If the kill last night was by the aliens, then the only hope for town is to bring it down to 1 alien : 1 townie via lynching an alien today and the arsonist tomorrow, and even then, that's an alien win by usual win condition standards. The game would still be ongoing, but town have no hope to win, so there's no point in considering this situation because there's nothing that can be done about it anyway.

More believable is that if we have two scumteams, they don't both have a kill. If there are no kills in play and 3 scum/1 town, that's a Happily Ever After (the 1-member scumgroup and townie vote to no-lynch because they have no better option). It makes no sense for a single-player scumteam to have no kill, nor does a 1-shot SK make much sense, in which case the single player must have heavy restrictions on what they can do. A single player as arsonist scum and two-man scumteam with no kill is believable, but town

still

doesn't win in that situation, because there's no death order that leads to a town win (crosskills are impossible because one scumteam has no kill).

So this all depends on BBmolla's definition of the normal win conditions. My current belief behind the situation is:

• 1 scum: lynch yessiree, we win
  
• 2 scum: if lynching any given player would win for town, the scum won't let it happen, so our best hope is to no-lynch and aim for a draw
  
• 3 scum: I don't believe town can win in this situation, so there's no point in considering it

This reasoning is exactly the same for me as it is for you, by the way (assuming you're telling the truth about your role, and we're the only townies). The optimal play is to lynch yessiree if BBmolla says that 2 scum (with no kill) : 2 town is a scum win, and much less certain if he says the game would still be ongoing in that situation (although no lynching at least once is almost certainly safe).

[callforjudgement]

@yessiree: Is your scumteam responsible for the kill last night?

[callforjudgement]

VOTE: yessiree

It's quite probable that town's just lost here. In all the setups where it hasn't, this is the right move.

[callforjudgement]

UNVOTE:

Gah, I asked the wrong question.

@Mod:

In the question I asked above about 2 town : 2 scum, would scum win even if they didn't have the ability to make kills?

[callforjudgement]

CFJ, should yessiree's team win, yes or no?

Well, his win condition contradicts mine (unless he's fakeclaiming with a town-compatible win condition, which is incredibly bad play), so no.

I'm most interested in winning, if there's any opportunity to do that. If you're planning on claiming scum, then do so. I will attempt, as far as possible, to win the game for town, because that's my win condition. If it becomes clear to me that it's completely impossible for town to win, I will attempt, as far as possible, to force a draw. If even that is impossible, there isn't a whole lot of point in playing, really, because I can no longer play to my win condition.

PEDIT: VOTE: yessiree

[callforjudgement]

He only needed to ignite two players for the win, because nobody could stop him winning from there. The flavour looks like he had three dousings lined up, though, not though it matters.

BTW, it would have been incredibly hard for me to win upon replacing in, seeing as the setup was a 3:2:1 in that situation with a lot of delayed kills going around. Town's only hope was a crosskill that night; my only chance would be to convince the Aliens that serra was scum, and then lynch an alien with the other alien doused, and I didn't have enough information about the setup to even conceive of that plan, nor reads accurate enough to have aclue it was a good idea. It'd also have required serra to actually ignite that night, which is unlikely. So although I sort-of lead town along a path to ruin (sorry Bob), I'm not sure I could have done much better.

I would have voted No Lynch, by the way. It was very unlikely to lead to win for me, but lynching serra would have made it completely impossible, and there was at least a theoretical chance that serra was a vengeful townie, day 5 vigilante, or something else that would have allowed town to win. And "very unlikely" is better chances than "impossible". yessiree took the decision out of my hands, though; No Lynch was probably not the best move for the aliens there.

I'd be interested in the night action history.

[callforjudgement]

I don't really mind being in an unwinnable situation, so long as I don't know it's unwinnable. If it's impossible for me to have done any better, then I did my best, and I'm happy. But if I know I'm not going to win, there's not really much point in doing anything. So I was having fun up to today, and days of fun followed by one day of apathy is still a pretty good game.

Was the scum captain allowed to direct Bob to no-action, or did he have to let Bob confirm townies every night? I guess one possibility would have been to tell Bob to repeatedly investigate the same player; that reveals that the Captain is scum, but because nobody knows who the Captain is, it doesn't really matter.

PEDIT: @Alduskkel: you could probably have convinced me to lynch serra (which would have won the game for you if you could get Bob to play along; yessiree certainly would have done) if not for the 1v1, which tends to dominate believed-lylo discussion (actually post-lylo, but nobody knew that). I believed in the "someone who's making weird assumptions about the setup is probably scum" tell even before the game (based on my own behaviour as scum), and this game only helps confirmed that in my mind. (Basically, the reason is that townies don't know much about the setup, and thus tend to look for the most plausible explanations of things because those are normally correct; scum have more information about the setup, and so have a better idea of when it's screwy.) I should have followed the reasoning further and concluded "then the setup actually is screwy", although knowledge that the setup is screwy wouldn't really have helped me here.

[callforjudgement]

I was also surprised people had zero issues with the Alien's claims, I thought the Captain claiming would cause immediate "Why the hell wouldn't you have Cop check you then Alduskel?"
And having a Conspiracy Theorist AND a Follower on town? No questions there?

I assumed that Alduskkel wouldn't want to waste an investigation when people were reading him as town, to explain the first point. For the second point, I was under the impression that the scum were weak and the town's roles were likewise weak (oh how wrong I was), with the idea behind the setup being that many of the town roles were there to be scanned by the Follower, sort-of acting like a reverse Fruit Vendor in a way. This is why I immediately concluded, upon Mac flipping town, that the setup was a 7:2 nightless and all the town roles were entirely useless. That was also pretty much completely wrong, but that setup would have made sense; it just wasn't the one we were in.

(This also goes some way towards explaining why I thought Alduskkel was town.)

[callforjudgement]

Alduskkel, you're far too good at pretending to be an indecisive townie. (Not sure which smiley the ragy one is, but imagine I put it here.)

[callforjudgement]

Wow, serra was excellent at predicting who'd end up alive in lategame. Three douses and they all triggered.