Alt accounts

[mastin2]

I have so many alts that I can give Faraday a run for his money.
Most of them go unused, though, because I have enough fun on the alts I DO use. (Yes I use and actively play on alts. Be paranoid if you don't see me in a game; I could always be there, either as a player already or as someone watching...waiting to come in at the opportune moment.)

[mastin2]

I just said I have so many alts I give Faraday a run for his money.
Meaning so many that I'd have to manually go into my email and specifically search for the Welcome To Mafiascum.net! messages I have to count them all, and even then that wouldn't get them all because I have access to hydras that nobody but me remembers (thus, I could use them as if an alt), an alt or two that was made by another person no longer around which was gifted to me, plus at least one alt which I used a different email account for. (That one, I lost the password to, though, and since--while a legitimate email address I was using--I don't remember the email address, the account is for all intensive purposes lost to the ages.)

I also have a ton of alt ideas I haven't made simply because I have so many already and don't really want to be bothered to make more than I need.
Let's just say that, dead serious, I could run a 13p game as the mod, and have every single player in the game be me. Maybe double that, though doing that would probably require tapping into hydras.

I use them because they're fun. Plus, some alts have actually pioneered aspects of my play that you'd never know were once exclusive to my alts. For instance, I used to play rather formally, but on an alt I learned to be more casual. The way I used to post was notorious for wallposting, and it was on an alt that I learned to cut it down. It'd be entirely fair to say that the me you see now is more from alts than from me as I used to be, because the better aspects of those alts bled into me. (Which is, incidentally, one of the reasons I end up stopping my usage of an alt after a while: if the alt becomes too close to me, what's the point?) Some alts have built up their own reputation rivaling my own, too, if I use them long enough.

(Also, technically speaking, this account is an alt, made on my one-year scumday. My original account was Mastin, but I deliberately switched to mastin2 for the sake of a fresh start. Mastin was a VI, mastin2 is now someone who there's no consensus on, some still seeing the VI, lots seeing a friend, some seeing a mentor, and so on.)

[mastin2]

Can you give a link to a game your original account posted in?

Can do better. It was only 35 non-marathon games or so.

Technically

, my first game on site was Newbie 688, and to this day, I consider Battle Mage my scum IC for it, but I don't count the game as being a game, thanks to my early replace-out.

The game I count as my first game is Newbie 735, where I drew cop and nailed both scum. Running at nearly the same time was my second game, Newbie 742, also a cop, also nailing both scum. This is what started me down the long dark path of arrogance: I had early success in my youth, so I essentially got mad with power. My first scumgame was Newbie 748. However, I didn't replace into that game until after I had been in Newbie 762, where I drew doc and was NKed immediately for being too town. (Coincidentally, this was my third game, and there were two pregame replacements. I was one. The COP was the other. So if I had replaced the OTHER slot, that'd have been three newbie games in a ROW as a cop.) Incidentally, I played in Newbie 763 as well, and did fairly well there, too. It was also my first game with a non-incompetent town IC, in the form of ABR, who I consider my town IC. (Yes, ABR was my town IC.)

My first non-newbie game was Bleach Mafia Karakura Town (I stalked mods back in the day, if you couldn't tell), my first Large was apparently Mafia/NY 91 Hell Aboard the Purple Flower (though I thought it was...) and my first Large Theme was Lynch All Lurkers, which was also my first-COMPLETED scumgame. (That game, OhGodMyHamlet? A newbie? Went on for months. Lynch All Lurkers was my second scumgame, starting after Open 131 below.)

My first Open was Open 141 Bird 7p. Incidentally, my second was also the very next game I joined according to my chronology, Open 131, a game so painful to read that I'm not even sorry I flaked from it. (Nightless Vanilla. Yeah.)

I'm the reason my team of Polygamists lost Open 145, since I was beginning to show the symptoms of siteflaking. The first game of mine as TOWN to show this degenerating mental health, though, is Inventor Mafia, where I got lynched D1 I think for the first time and certainly first time as town. Another fail on my part was Newbie 779 as the scum roleblocker.

Then we begin to enter into both the best and the worst. Worst? Large Normal 92 was my next game, as a lyncher. That got lynched D1. When my target was the cultafia (yes, cult that was second mafia) leader. (Incidentally, I publicly claimed. This no doubt has had an influence over why I am always so benevolent to third parties. I may have been a VI back then, but that sort of humiliation shouldn't be inflicted on anyone.) Yes, this was a NORMAL game, and one of two Normal games to inspire the foundation of the NRG. (Which I'm now a member of.)

Open 148: Jungle Republic is noteworthy not as a worst game of mine (though I, in a moment of epic fail, scumread the two near-universal townreads of iamausername and Yosarian2, convinced they were the wolf team), but as a game with an epic failure of a moderator.

Beard Mafia is a fail in that I was nightkilled by a serial killer acting like a vig, making it effectively the first time I was ever vigged. It gets worse, though. Much, MUCH worse. Introducing...Phables: Death Note, where I got DAYVIGGED. (To this day, I have only been dayvigged three times. Once was by scum, when I was being a scumhunting god and they shot me to prevent me from continuing to nail them. Another time I was a miller, shot by town. The third was THIS game.)

And in a similar failure to Phables and to NY 91, there was NY 96: Murder in Emerald City. As scum. Most widely known for being the source of Khan's title, thanks to his infamous miller gambit, it's also one of my greatest failures. (Fun fact: I almost let a scumslip out by saying I'd used my strategy once as each alignment...at a point where I had flipped town in Phables, and lyncher in 91, which'd leave 95 as scum. I caught the slip before I made it, though.)

Noteworthy though not a failure on my part (I have no shame in having flaked this one), is the utter failure of a game not even worth being called as much known as Chess Mafia.

It wasn't all bad, though. My first modded game had excellent flavor. Cubic Mafia was the first game I survived to 3p lylo (albeit by replacing into 3p lylo), and also the first game I made a vote that directly led to the town win. (Though it was fairly easy; all the pieces were already there for me, I just needed to complete the job.) It was my own fault because I siteflaked, but while I was ticked off the town lost the game, I'm not ashamed of what little I DID give to Newbie 804, because the reads were good, just...not given in a timely fashion. Mean Mod Lovefest marks the first usage of the Mastin Gambit. I was wrong on most my other reads, but dangit, I was right about Blood being town so I was happy to die for him. (Link for the curious.)

I was of course struggling by this point rather severely, getting closer and closer to that siteflake, so Boost Mafia goes back into the failure pile, as mafia. I should never have joined NY 98: Appenine Mafia, and my D1 lynch there is my fault.

Proving I wasn't an utter failure, though, Open 155: Jungle Republic, I was scum actually doing fairly well. I was, again, siteflaking, and I forget whether I flaked or officially asked for replacement in a moment of responsibility, but either way, I was quite sad I couldn't complete the game since I WAS avoiding my normal scum pitfalls such as they were. Similarly, I regret being unable to finish Rabbit Doubt Mafia, though I ended up nightkilled anyway as a vaguely-coplike-rolecop.

Some other fun things, a lolworthy game is the original Stars Aligned, where I and a SK crosskilled each other and a scummate got themselves modkilled for betraying the scumteam. Bleach Soul Society is lolworthy in how scumsided it was, and also in how I basically didn't play at all and yet never got replaced because the game ended so fast that there was never a need for me to BE replaced.

That was it, save for one game. My last game, the game which sent me on my path to redemption: MtG Parallel Universe Mafia Tar's Subgame. Where Tar gave me a posting restriction

specifically

to me, to counter my style, forcing me to evolve my play. I owe a random act of crowd-control from Tar to me being a better person.

To think I did all of that in less than a year. I was gone from games (except formally requesting replacement) by August of 2009. I came back in September, mainly for closure. I made sure I was around during October, though, because I wanted to be around on October 8th, my scumday, for a specific reason...the creation of this account. Now, I did play two additional games on the account: Newbie 1024 introduced me to Nachomamma8, who helped to redefine my play, and is one of the largest influences on me. (I got replaced only because of upcoming holidays and my inability to be around during them.)

The other game, Newbie 1048, was the game that gave me the prototype for my first respected MD article, A view on cops, launching my MD career.

The rest, as they say, is history. I switched after a couple of hydra games to be on mastin2.

[mastin2]

did you type all of that just now

Over the course of an hour, yes. (Approximately. Post 22 was the last when I began typing.) I had to make sure the chronology was accurate. I've never done that before. (I've given up on the idea of ever doing so for MY account. I played about 35 games as Mastin in one year. I skipped 2010 mostly, but in 2011 and every year since then, that average has been more or less the same. It seriously wouldn't surprise me if I'm in the 170s by now, but between the massive number, the number of games as hydras, and the lost data of the rollback, it's nearly impossible to tell for sure. This, incidentally, is just for games where I'm not an alt. Add in alts, and by now it wouldn't surprise me if I've played over 200 games in my mafia career, EXCLUDING marathon games.)

Edit:

Checking the timestamp on post 23 (which was in my pedit before posting)...make that two hours.

[mastin2]

Oh, yeah.
Claiming to be a newbie is borderline unethical. When I make alts, I make sure to play them in a manner where my experience is left ambiguous, and if asked, I come up with a way to say, "I have some."

Claiming to be just an alt or a single person when a hydra IS unethical and borderline illegal.
...Claiming to be a hydra when it's just you as an alt, though, is just being stupid.
(Yes, I am guilty of this. Not my proudest moment.)

[mastin2]

And not a soul in the world stared in disbelief.

[mastin2]

Has that come up?

I remember a game where chamber replaced out because he learned of an alt's main accidentally.

[mastin2]

No answer?

Naturally not.

As a guideline, I never respond to questions about what alts may be mine, and vice-versa, don't answer questions about who my main would be. (Guideline, not rule, though.)

To demonstrate, I'm kinda sorta breaking the rule by talking about Mortal Kombat Mafia.
The cursed Palisade hydra was in fact a legitimate hydra. Just one that was eternally cursed to have its members abandon the game and leave a singular head driving. Including Mortal Kombat, where it was me as an alt, but I still FAKED having my partner around.

[mastin2]

This right here is terrible. Way to take advantage of a mechanic not available to other, single players. Yet another reason to despise hydras. I'm disappointed in you, mastina.

Pretty sure this is a joke, since it'd be ignorance otherwise.

I have one secret alt, which is still standing (save for I think 3 people who know it).

I

might

know who it is, but as a fellow lover of alts, I'd never dare speak a word. (Also because I'd look foolish if I was wrong. )