Newbie 656 Game Over!

[Casey]

Hi you two!

I've got some free time, so let me read what happened in this game and then hopefully I'll come to a decision!

[Casey]

It seems I have caught up and I am ready to make a decision on the game. Give me a moment to make a neat post.

[Casey]

Of the four setups, three are still theoretically possible:

One is a sane cop and the other is mafia
One is a doctor and the other is mafia
One is a townie and the other is a roleblocker

I make an educated guess that one of you is a townie, and the other is a roleblocker, as one of you having any living power role makes absolutely no sense at this point in the game.

***

Anomalous posts:

Drifter:
vote thinktank
for thinking too much

Drifter:
just seeing if this works
vote thinktank

***

I believe thinktank and drifter were not in cahoots with each other. Drifter may have been just acting clueless, but after drifter claimed vanilla townie, thinktank appeared to genuinely feign concern at drifter's actions. However, when thinktank says he's changed his mind about Drifter in post 289, I believe that to be a very clear tell that something is amiss, as Thinktank never changed his mind to begin with, he then goes on to say that his evidence is intuition.

Artem, on the other hand, does a FoS on 5 people, not including thinktank (nor lurker), and doesn't believe Drifter's newbie plays. Still slamming him at post 199.

In an attempt to solve this mystery, I laughed at Thinktank's comment: "At the moment my two picks for today's lynch are Artem and Drifter." It seems that five months didn't change much!

Drifter complained that everyone was not making the game fun by turning it into a classroom. He stopped posting shortly thereafter.

When Petunho replaces Drifter, however, he says he does two read-throughs. Once not knowing Drifter's alignment and then once knowing drifter's alignment, and he posts about different thoughts on both readthroughs. Why would he act like it's changed from vanilla townie if it hasn't? I think he might have been leaving it open for a doc claim. He then proceeds to slam into thegeckoj on post 344.

Artem then fencesits on post 359.

Artem says no lynch is good and doesn't raise suspicion about Thinktank in post 391.

Petunho defends Thinktank on post 404.

Artem reveals C5 as townie in post 438, because of the slowness of this game.

Petunho fingers lifeofpie and thegeckoj on post 468 and ulitmately gets both of them lynched. Nice playing there.

Artem joins the crusade against lifeofpie in post 475.

At post 492, Kairyuu says that we have a 50% chance to win. I feel the same way so far.

Petunho picks up where he left off by voting for thegeckoj in post 504.

Petunho claims town in post 512.

Attempts at roleclaiming go by, but it's obvious that there are no power roles.

...and nothing else of interest happens until Day 4, where Artem and Petunho duke it out.

Artem suspects Petunho and says nothing about RandomGem's possible guilt.

Petunho says RandomGem and Artem both had identical vote patterns. Is Artem copying RandomGem's voting behavior to blend in and not cause any suspicion and be masked like a clone, or are they both goal-oriented townies? Occam's Razor. They're townies. Petunho is scum.

Petunho also says in his quoted votecount that there is either one or two scum on the bandwagon. With that black and white thinking, he neglected to say an incriminating possibility - that there could be ZERO scum on the bandwagon. How is this possible? Simple: Drifter was scum. Ergo, Petunho is scum.

Not only is Petunho scum, but he's also a roleblocker, and has failed to block any roles, as there are none. You knew this, and thus you killed Kairyuu to keep things quiet.

I'm very interested in knowing what side Drifter was on and putting an end to this mystery.

Artem, you went actively scumhunting, and didn't slip up with it at all. You made some dodgy plays, but Petunho made more. If you're the scum, then you played a nearly solid game.

Petunho, you got hit with having to recover from Drifter's wake. He screamed newbie town to me, though you scream scum.

And with that, I choose not to draw this game out any farther. I play the kingmaker and end this game.

Vote Petunho.

[Artem]

Vote Petunho

[Artem]

Casey, are you somebody's alt?

[Petunho]

Yep! I was predicting it would be Artem, but I couldn't make a case against him. You played very well all the time and didn't left very little traces. The voting pattern of yours was the only thing and that I noticed too late. Congrats mafia!

[Kairyuu]

-is assuming that since the hammer has been cast he can post again-

GAAAAHHHHHH!!!!

Brilliantly played Artem! You kept me alive long enough to make it look like there was a doc, and then offed me as soon as I figured out it had to be you.

@Casey: Thanks for replacing into a tough position! I tried to get Vel to let me back in since I still didn't know the setup (he wouldn't tell me), but he never got back to me with a yes or no.

Reasons why it had to be Artem (Vel's assurances nonwithstanding):

1. Serious wishy-washyness on thinktank. Tried to play both sides of the wagon before moving to bussing once the lynch was unavoidable.

2. Petunho's point about the vote patterns is totally valid, and is a brilliant strategy on Artem's part. If you follow the votes of a prominent player, then you are caught early, but if you follow those of a mild lurker then no one notices. Artem gets a pat on the back for this play, and Petunho gets one for catching it.

3. This one really clued me in. Both Petunho and RandomGem were completely inactive on site starting more then 4 days before Night started, and ending (or not, in RG's case) almost a week after Night ended. Who was the only person posting on site who could have possibly killed me? Artem, that's who.

Nice job Artem. You picked the right townie to kill.

[Casey]

Noooooooooo!

Drat, I tried so hard! I was so convinced!

So, Drifter was town after all. Should have gone with my instinct.

Very good, Artem!

I guess I'll have to get better at this. I read a bunch of games and articles before signing up.

(And yes, I was RandomGem's replacement)

[Casey]

Kairyuu: I still don't get how to understand vote patterns.

Also, is checking when people visit the board a valid strategy? That seems a little like cheating.

[Vel-Rahn Koon]

Ouch. Another town falls to the insidious ploys of the Mafia. Maybe the town will fare ok, but I'm kinda doubting it.

Petunho,

Townie

, Lynched Day 4

Artem

wins the game for the

Mafia

team!!

[Vel-Rahn Koon]

Casey, if you ever find yourself in LyLo again don't ever vote straight off the bat. Especially when you've just replaced in. One of the other players may convince you that you might be wrong

Kairyuu, I know that you offered to replace back in, but in a 3 person LyLo I couldn't let you back in because:

1) the scum probably had good reason for taking you out Night 3

2) too easy to metagame who had to be the remaining scum, even if 1 didn't apply.

This one really clued me in. Both Petunho and RandomGem were completely inactive on site starting more then 4 days before Night started, and ending (or not, in RG's case) almost a week after Night ended. Who was the only person posting on site who could have possibly killed me? Artem, that's who.

This is just flat-out dumb luck. I would not have opened the thread up when I did if I had not heard from all the players, considering the circumstances under which I inherited the game. Petunho and Artem responded within 24 hours of me sending out the mass prods.

RG picked the PM up but never responded. I went ahead with it anyway, because at least then I could say that he had picked up the prod. When he picked it up but never responded I knew that he'd need to be replaced, but I couldn't start looking for that replacement until I would normally have done so, because that would give things away

Good game guys. Sorry it got dicey there at the end, but I'm glad you were able to finish it out.


Vel

[Kairyuu]

Don't worry about it Casey. You replaced into a bad spot and followed your instincts. I would have done the same thing, only my vote woulda landed on Artem for reasons stated above (I'm the only player I know that votes immediately in lylo).

Kairyuu: I still don't get how to understand vote patterns.

Alright then. Each player will vote, probably for several people, over the course of the game. Those votes can be compared to the votes of other players to gain information. Voting patterns are nice ways to catch scum either following their buddies patterns (useful when someone votes similarly to a proven scum) or following a high profile townie (useful in endgame situations when someone looks quite pro-town and a less highly viewed player has almost the same patterns). The scum will generally either band together as subtly as possible, or follow strong townies in a similar fashion.

What Artem did was brilliant play though. He decided to follow a townie, which isn't uncommon. However, the townie that Artem chose to follow was not high profile, but rather one who was helpful in small ways so that no one actually suspected scum out of him, but no one put him high on town lists either. A player like that generally coasts to endgame without getting lynched or NKed, and Artem, who followed the same voting patterns, was able to do the exact same thing.

Also, is checking when people visit the board a valid strategy? That seems a little like cheating.

It isn't my favorite activity, but if it works, why not use it?

@Vel: I kinda figured. Thanks much for standing in when NabNab flaked!

This is just flat-out dumb luck. I would not have opened the thread up when I did if I had not heard from all the players, considering the circumstances under which I inherited the game. Petunho and Artem responded within 24 hours of me sending out the mass prods.

Dumb luck is nice, and I was still right!

[Vel-Rahn Koon]

Don't worry about it Casey. You replaced into a bad spot and followed your instincts. I would have done the same thing, only my vote woulda landed on Artem for reasons stated above (I'm the only player I know that votes immediately in lylo).

Kairyuu: I still don't get how to understand vote patterns.

Alright then. Each player will vote, probably for several people, over the course of the game. Those votes can be compared to the votes of other players to gain information. Voting patterns are nice ways to catch scum either following their buddies patterns (useful when someone votes similarly to a proven scum) or following a high profile townie (useful in endgame situations when someone looks quite pro-town and a less highly viewed player has almost the same patterns). The scum will generally either band together as subtly as possible, or follow strong townies in a similar fashion.

What Artem did was brilliant play though. He decided to follow a townie, which isn't uncommon. However, the townie that Artem chose to follow was not high profile, but rather one who was helpful in small ways so that no one actually suspected scum out of him, but no one put him high on town lists either. A player like that generally coasts to endgame without getting lynched or NKed, and Artem, who followed the same voting patterns, was able to do the exact same thing.

Nice explanation!

Also, is checking when people visit the board a valid strategy? That seems a little like cheating.

It isn't my favorite activity, but if it works, why not?

If you're smart, you'll go to your profile and change "Hide my Online Status" to YES and get rid of the ability for people to try to game that little meta. I agree it's cheating to a degree.

[Artem]

Good game, all.

For the most part, it was actually smooth sailing. Everybody did a good job posting of who they find suspicious, so all I had to do was NK those that didn't agree with the "popular opinion" and go with the flow during the day.

The biggest concern was of course the roles. As a roleblocker I knew I was either facing both the cop and the doc or neither. Thegeckoj had more cop tells than anybody else (things like impatience during day 1), so I blocked him the first two nights. Drifter soft-claimed vanilla on Day 1. Then when it was down to the five of us, Kairyuu suggested for the cop and the doc to come out under certain conditions. This told me that Kair himself is not a power role. So, at that point I knew that either thegeckoj + RandomGem were the roles or there were no roles. When thegeckoj flipped vanilla, I came to the conclusion that it was the latter and NK'd Kair. Kair was right: if he was left alive for the endgame, the other two players would auto-vote each other and I didn't want the victory chance to lay in the hands of one player (especially if it wasn't me ). Both Petunho and RG had enough suspicion that I thought I would have a better chance in the endgame if the two were left alive.

As much as I hate playing a mafia role, I actually enjoyed the game quite a bit. Thank you all for playing.

[Fenchurch]

Bah! Go town!

I still had an emotional investment in this game (although thankfully not as obsessive as when I was dreaming about what the lynch results would be ), and have been following it nearly as much as my current games. I'm glad it didn't have to get called as a draw - thank you Casey for replacing in.

Whilst watching the game, I was very much convinced that it was Petunho. I said on Day 2 that I thought thinktank's wishywashying over the Drifter wagon seemed like a strong buddy-tell, and this remained my conviction right up until the end. If I had had the option to replace back in, I would have made exactly the same vote Casey did.

As for Artem, me feeling remains as on Day 1: I feel he escaped questioning, but I just could not find anything to question him on. Who was Artem supposed to have been following with his votes? In my opinion the vote on thinktank was pretty well-timed, I talked about the possibility of it being a bus but I didn't really suspect it.

Artem I'm curious to know, with your power-role guessing, could you tell that I was not a power-role before you killed me?

I had some feedback for lifeofpie with regards to mis-lynching him (if he wanted it), but it seems he has left the site since this game. If you are still around, lifeofpie, please chip in.

Kairyuu, despite being practically cleared, I had a real gitchy feeling about you, haha. Even though I know why you said them, things such as "I like being confirmed town" and "doc should protect me" it really made me not want to trust you! If I had been the in the game, I would have been glad you were night-killed so I wouldn't have had to worry about that. Anyway my point here is, I guess I can't always trust my gut feeling.

All in all, thanks guys for a game which I enjoyed, and feel I learned from. If anyone wants to give me feedback, I would welcome it.

[Artem]

Artem I'm curious to know, with your power-role guessing, could you tell that I was not a power-role before you killed me?

I had you pegged as a vanilla townie, so I would have been surprised if you flipped as a power-role.

[lifeofpie]

I am kinda here, but it's alright I got lynched as I've been distracted. I really enjoy mafia, but I am worried my sporadic behavior detracts from others' enjoyment.

[lifeofpie]

Just saying hi.

[ShadowLurker]

I realize I'm a couple weeks here but I didn't realize the game had ended.

If anyone has any questions about the game, as one of the ICs, I would be glad to try and answer them.

[Fenchurch]

I have question!

What prompted you to vote for thinktank on day 1? It seemed really out the blue, to me at least. But I was glad you did, thinktank was one of the people I had wanted to see lynched Day 1, and the only reason I didn't get back on his wagon sooner was that I didn't want to appear jumpy.

I've just remembered; one of my own reasons for wanting to get rid of thinktank, I felt sure that he was being deliberately quiet Day 1 in order to claim cop later on. My fear, therefore, was the small chance in my mind that he might have

actually

been cop.

This suspicion stemmed from reading another of thinktank's (at the time, ongoing) games, where he had also lurked through early on and then put in a suspicious looking cop claim Day 2, with the defence "of course a cop would lurk Day 1". Ironically, in that game, he did turn out to be cop.

lifeofpie, my feedback for you was going to be that I felt you didn't argue your defence that strongly on Day 2, which I took to be another sure-sign that you were guilty, although it was something that I didn't want to point out at the time. But in retrospect perhaps you did... either way, I'm sorry if the attacks on you seemed unrelenting, but based on your actions previously, I didn't want to let you off the hook.

[ShadowLurker]

Well simply looking at his posts, from the period of Thu Aug 14, 2008 to October (a span of 2 and a half months) he had basically contributed no content at all even after repeated requests to do so. The only vote he had casted all game was a random one. As an IC, he wouldn't have no read all game. At worst, a lynch of him would be getting rid of a completely useless person.

Also there is no reason a cop should lurk on Day 1.

[Vel-Rahn Koon]

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