Micro 228: Con Mafia (Game Over)

[serrapaladin]

Micro 228 - Con Mafia: Anything Goes

Spoiler: Result

The Scourges of the Underworld, consisting of Drunken Monkey and Antihero, win the game.

Player List

1. Antihero
2. StubbsKVM
3. Twin Flames (Hydra of NS and Rach)
4. Apocalypse (Hydra of Who, Nati, Sakura, GiF, Saki, etc.)
5. Bertkerberos (Hydra of Bert, Nacho, and Syry)
6. Drunken Monkey (Hydra of Ree and Yates)

replaces Mr_Ree pregame

7. broomhead
8. Honeybear (Hydra of Mara and fuzzy)
9. Marquis

Spoiler: Alive (2/9)

1. Antihero,

Philip S. Van Cise

, survived and won Day 4
3. Twin Flames,

Frank Abagnale, Jr., Town JoaT

, endgamed Day 4

Spoiler: Dead (7/9)

2. StubbsKVM,

Lou Blonger, Global Town Enabler

, lynched (and totally removed from the game and stuff) Day 1
7. broomhead,

Henry Gondorff

, killed Night 1
9. Marquis,

William Chalinor

, lynched Day 2
4. Apocalypse,

Bret Maverick, Odd-Night Lie Detector

, killed Night 2
6. Drunken Monkey,

Isaac Newton, Roleblocker/Rolecop

, lynched Day 3
8. HoneyBear,

Victor Lustig, Double Voter

, killed Night 3
5. Bertkerberos,

Natwarlal

, indicted Day 4

10 Simple Rules

0.

Read these rules carefully, as they differ vastly from the standard.

1.

The site-wide Mafia rules explicitly do not apply

to this game as a whole. In particular, outside communication and influences are allowed, including contacting people not part of this game and using alternate accounts. (You may not, however, discuss other ongoing games in this thread.) Site-wide rules that do not refer to Mafia in particular still apply, which includes limiting abusive language and forbids anything illegal.

2. Days will last for two weeks, and Nights last for 48 hours.

3. Votes must be in bold. Unvotes aren't necessary.

4. Lynches or No Lynches occur through simple majority. No majority by deadline is a No Lynch. Once a player has been lynched or killed, his alignment and role will be revealed.

5.

Only players that are alive and part of this game may post in the game thread with the account they signed up with.

A player that has been declared lynched or killed may no longer post in the game thread.

6. Prods will go out to players after 48 hours of not posting in the game thread. A post with no game-related content gives at most an additional 24 hours before a prod is issued or replacement is sought. For the purpose of activity, weekends count as one 24-hour period. 3 prods are a replace, so please announce V/LA's.

7. You may NOT sign up to this game with multiple accounts. You may NOT allow others access to the account you signed up with or take measures which would give you access to someone else's account. If you have access to list-mod/admin privileges, you may NOT use them for the purposes of this game (this goes for players and non-players). Please do not contact anyone with such privileges to elicit information from them.

8. You may NOT threaten other players, or enter a binding agreement in any way related to this game. Informal agreements are allowed.

9. Anything not mentioned above is ALLOWED. [You can PM me as a courtesy, but unless you know someone's address and want to go beat their alignment out of them, the answer is probably 'yes'. Trickery is strongly encouraged.]

10. Follow all orders given by the moderator.

10b. More a request than a rule, but I would highly appreciate it if you could BCC me (or send me links to) all game-related communication outside of this thread, both for the sake of posterity and my own curiosity. In particular, if you do need to replace out, I will forward your replacement all of your communication.

Setup

This is a closed theme setup based on famous con artists from history and fiction. The setup does not include cults or jesters, but may not be entirely normal. The flavour for (night-)actions is different from that in normal games and the night action resolution may be non-standard. It would be in your interest not to make assumptions about how roles work and interact.

[serrapaladin]

Prologue

10pm
December 27, 1999
The Berkeley Hotel's Pavilion Conservatory Suite, London

The eight were eyeing each other in silence. None of them easily lost for words, they had no idea what to expect, but didn't want to appear less informed than their neighbours. They had all been promised money. Enough money, it would seem, for them to leave behind families and business opportunities (mostly the latter) and make their way to cold and rainy London at such a miserable time of year.

John Constantine, newly lit Silk Cut in one hand and the other in his pocket, had waited long enough. He hadn't travelled far, only 6 stops along the Jubilee line, but felt entirely out of place. He turned up the collar on his trenchcoat - Constantine was the only one not in a full suit - and headed for the exit, when the door in front of him swung open.

"Mr. Constantine, thank you for coming. Please, sit!" said the dominant voice of the small and unassuming old man who had just entered.

"For those who don't recognise me, my name is Blonger. I have asked you all here today because I have a proposition." Constantine was irritated, but he recognised the name Lou Blonger and decided to hear what this disgraced Denver kingpin had to say.

"To put it simply, my offer is this: four days of your time for one hundred million British Pounds. As some of you might be aware, there is something particular about this turn of the year that has governments and corporations in fear. I just so happen to have a way of turning this fear to terror, and you are exactly the group of people who can use that terror to turn a profit.

"I will be expecting you all tomorrow morning. My assistant will give you the details." concluded Lou Blonger and turned around on the spot to head back through the antique door, yet again leaving the eight perhaps greatest conmen of all time in silence.

Welcome, everyone, to Con Mafia.

I hope you have all read the rules

, which are somewhat different to those you will normally see. If you haven't read them, please do that now.

Also, please read all text in purple.

There will be important information about the game, particularly in the first few. Boxes like the above contain flavour that gives no indication of players' alignments and shouldn't convey any information my commentary doesn't, but it won't hurt to read those as well.

This is a themed game for 9 players, centred on Lou Blonger, the boss of the "Million-Dollar Bunco Ring" that operated out of Denver, Colorado in the early 20th century. Anachronistically transposed to the turn of the 21st century, he is joined by a group of eight con artists from history and fiction to pull off the con of the millennium.

The conmen recruited by Lou Blonger are (in alphabetical order):

Frank Abagnale, Jr. (American impostor, mid 20th century)
William Chaloner (British counterfeiter, 17th century)
John Constantine (DC Comics'

Hellblazer

- British detective and conman, late 20th century)
Henry Gondorff (

The Sting

- American grifter, mid 20th century)
Victor Lustig (Austro-Hungarian con artist, early 20th century)
Bret Maverick (

Maverick

- American poker player, approx. 18th century)
Natwarlal (Indian con artist, mid 20th century)
Charles Ponzi (American financial trickster, early 20th century)

Blonger's Crew

(which includes Lou Blonger and the majority of the players above) will constitute the town of this game.

December 28, 1999 will be Day 1 of the game, and subsequent calendar days are equated with game days, such that December 31, 1999 is Day 4.

At the end of Day 4, if all threats to Blonger's Crew have been eliminated, the con is successful and Blonger's Crew win the game.

A note about the changed rules: many things are allowed that usually aren't, which should inspire you to be creative with this game. This doesn't mean that you should spend your time trying to "break" the game by comparing screenshots of your role PM's, or something similar. I can assure you it won't work, and there are mechanisms in place that will severely disadvantage that sort of play. Public mass claims are highly discouraged. In general, my best advice for both sides is to be cautious, think ahead, and plan for the worst.

Finally, it is inevitable that people not part of the game will become an influencing factor, so I'd like to remind players that no one outside the game has a win condition related to it. External opinions are expected and encouraged, but it would be foolish to put the result of the game into the hands of someone not in it.

[serrapaladin]

Day 1

8:15am
December 28, 1999
A warehouse in Wapping, East London

"In other news, Saparmurat Niyazov, current President of Turkmenistan, has proclaimed himself - ...excuse me, has been proclaimed President for Life. The Turkmen President has been in power since 1990 and has attracted international media attention through his plans of renaming months after members of -"

"Who cares about this load of bollocks?" snarked Constantine, unplugging the old TV set up next to the table they had wiped clean to have breakfast at.

"Sir, for a man of trickery and persuasion, you are inexplicably unpleasant." William Chaloner had just finished the last sip of his cup of Earl Grey.

"Well, mate, for a famous con, you're inexplicably ugly. Seriously, your head looks-"

They were interrupted by the arrival of Natwarlal, carrying a large briefcase. Now wearing a beautifully embroidered silk Sherwani, the elderly Indian man stopped near the entrance of the warehouse and appreciated what Blonger had managed to organise. There were cables everywhere, hanging from metal rods attached beneath the ceiling and leading to computers - probably thousands of them - neatly arranged along desks that spanned almost the entire width of the warehouse. In an impeccable British accent, the Indian apologised for his late arrival:

"I'm afraid a Bahraini Prince I met in Monaco had expressed interest in acquiring the Millennium Dome not far from here, so naturally I couldn't resist. This here is his downpayment." He placed the suitcase down on the breakfast table next to a visibly grumpy Victor Lustig - a very rare sight, indeed.

Lou Blonger, pleased to see that everyone had arrived, folded up his newspaper, stood up, and addressed the group:

"Gentlemen! As you can see, this is no small operation. By midday, these 1500 computers will have as many busy pairs of hands setting my plan into motion. As I'm sure you have figured out, our game will involve what is known as the Y2K bug. The technical details are boring, but a reliable contact of mine at the Cambridge Computer Laboratory has ensured me that the panic about computers entirely failing or even exploding because they can't display the date 2000 is almost completely unfounded. The widespread fear is largely a result of scaremongering.

"Lucky for us, most people are of course not aware of this, and crucially, neither are the decision makers at some of London's biggest corporations, and even the British government itself. Luckier yet, we already have a handful of plants in IT advisory positions, ready to propagate a last-minute wave of terror about the potential consequences. Add to that our little army of nerds hopping between internet forums and newsgroups, spreading a fake MIT report about even more catastrophic consequences, and you have companies and governments willing to grasp at straws to avoid the imminent disaster of losing a combined trillion pounds.

"Now, before I get to your role in this business, there is something I'm afraid we need to discuss." he said, removing his Smith & Wesson Model 10 from the holster under his jacket and bringing it down onto the table with some force.

"It has been brought to my attention that not everyone among you is who they say they are. Specifically, it would seem we have two infiltrators in our midst -"

"Oi! What's everyone lookin' at me for?"

Toying with his gun on the table, Blonger continued: "I'm sure you can all appreciate that I can't let something like this ruin my operation, so we will need to figure this out, and I'm afraid I can't let you leave until we have. Gentlemen, you are all very capable of trickery and deception, so I expect you to use every available resource of yours to find out who these scum are. Every evening from today until the 31st, there will be a vote on whom to remove from the group, and the lucky target will end up at the bottom of the Thames with a bullet in his brain. Understood? Good."

This game consists of

Lou Blonger and the six loyal members of his crew (the Town)

and

two infiltrators (the Mafia)

.

At the end of Day 4, if the infiltrators have not been eliminated, the con is unsuccessful and the infiltrators win the game.

The role of Lou Blonger is guaranteed to be town aligned. The two infiltrators were chosen at random from the eight remaining characters. Again, attempts to break the game or outguess the mod will almost certainly fail and likely backfire.

Due to the nature of this game, replacements are particularly difficult to deal with, so if you anticipate not being able to complete the game, please consider forming a hydra with someone that could take over. In the case that you do have to replace out, it is very important that you have cc'ed the Mod in any and all communication relating to this game, which I can forward to your replacement. Please remember to cc/send me copies of any game-related communication where possible.

Role PM's are going out randomly over the next hour or so. Once you have your role PM, please don't communicate with anyone about not publicly accessible information until I have opened the thread. I will only start D1 once everyone has confirmed.

[serrapaladin]

Everyone has confirmed, so the game can begin. Mr_Ree has been replaced by Drunken Monkey.

A few final words of caution: not everything is as it seems, so it would be in your interest to be careful when it comes to voting and sharing information.

Good luck and have fun!

VOTE COUNT 1.01

Not Voting (9) - Antihero, StubbsKVM, Twin Flames, Apocalypse, Bertkerberos, Drunken Monkey, broomhead, Honeybear, Marquis

With 9 alive, it's 5 to lynch.

The deadline for Day 1 is in (expired on 2013-09-16 23:59:59).

[StubbsKVM]

VOTE: BertKerberos

I have a thing for you.

[Apocalypse]

VOTE: Apocalypse
Now the other heads can't do it.

~0

[Apocalypse]

Fuck you, I do what I want.
VOTE: Apocalypse

~Heiss

[Apocalypse]

Was that an OMGUS, a self-vote, a vote for a self-voter, or a vote because you were mad that another head voted us before you could?

~Progenitus

[serrapaladin]

Guys, we talked about this...

[Apocalypse]

This is only for RVS.
And it's stopping now.
~0

<3

[Apocalypse]

Marquis are you scum

[Apocalypse]

To go with the theme of the game
and to amplify the degree of annoyance this hydra will cause
i will initiate rqs
if this gets us shot sorry guys

1. are you scum?
2. does your role pm say that you are scum?
3. are you not town?
4. is your role not town-aligned?
5. do you get to kill us at night?
6. does your QT say "mafia" in it?
7. why shouldnt we be voting you?

[Apocalypse]

Forgot
~Viera

[broomhead]

VOTE: Apocolypse for two very good reasons: First, I will have to read less if he is dead, and second, he has started the wagon upon himself. yey!


So I have some questions to get acclimated to the game. First who is who? oop, question recently answered by Serra's post #1 update, Thank you. This hydra thing will make it weird to peg people down on style...

Second, Serra advises not to mass claim, but I don't get why. He gave up 9 names, and there are 9 players, so each one will have a name and there shouldn't be any overlap, its not like we know which character names are scum and which aren't. EXCEPT for Blonger whom we know is town aligned. So I am not recommending we claim, but a mass claim would get us 1 confirmed town.

...who will subsequently die in the night... I am also willing to wager that we have no doctor as the way the set up reads we have 4 days to win and thats it, which is just enough time to get down to our last people. So even if we had a doctor, its not like saving a kill at night would help us at all, we have to kill all the scum in these 4 days. Anyone want to weigh in on this hypothesis?


and finally has anyone figured out a way to break the game yet?

[Twin Flames]

how about instead of trying to break the game we focus on scum hunting

VOTE: Broom



--Rach

[broomhead]

Thanks for identifying yourself Rach, very helpful! But a break in the game might be a way to find scum! I dunno, I am just curious to these mechanics...

[Twin Flames]

ehh it is usually pretty easy to tell the difference in posting style tween me and my fiance NS.


--Rach

[Apocalypse]

UNVOTE:
VOTE: Twin Flames
broomhead is the scumbuddy.

Why not answer the questions?

~Viera

[Apocalypse]

I'd actually rather vote Broom

VOTE: Broom

He posted right after we made the questions without answering

Teehee

~ CHESSKID

[Apocalypse]

Oh by the way the questions are very important and will help us scumhunting so everyone pls answer them in your next post without any questioning or you're scumclaiming kthx
-101

[Marquis]

Fuck it this is annoying

Dayvig: Apocalypse

[serrapaladin]

My bad, wrong button. But seriously Nati (et al): keep your multiple personality disorder in check.

Spoiler:

[broomhead]

To go with the theme of the game
and to amplify the degree of annoyance this hydra will cause
i will initiate rqs
if this gets us shot sorry guys

1. are you scum?
2. does your role pm say that you are scum?
3. are you not town?
4. is your role not town-aligned?
5. do you get to kill us at night?
6. does your QT say "mafia" in it?
7. why shouldnt we be voting you?

Sigh, they are so stupid they aren't worth anwsering

[Apocalypse]

If theyre stupid, you wont have a problem with it.

[Twin Flames]

1. are you scum? No

2. does your role pm say that you are scum? No

3. are you not town? No

4. is your role not town-aligned? No

5. do you get to kill us at night? No

6. does your QT say "mafia" in it? No at this point we have no QT even for our hydra yet, we usually make a new one for each game, and then ignore it and talk in person, often when we are laying on the bed.

7. why shouldnt we be voting you? Because it is in town's best interest to vote for actual scumz duh.

There you go and I am not sure how that is supposed to help considering I doubt scumz would actually say they were scum?

--Rach