Open 644: Stack the Deck - Game Over

[PantherPunt]

Would have been nice if you (or anyone else) had made that "ploben town" case I kept asking for. Alas. I don't think any town played well tbh.

And I was going to do that today, as I said. But good ole chip y'know.

The guy who wanted Ranger to claim first and somehow came to conclusion Ranger was top tier town and I was the scummiest of scum after....not having that opinion at any previous point in the game including when he made his claim order list. Shrug

[PantherPunt]

Pretty clear I never make the claim I made as scum, as Thor said. There were about 50 better options for me. But Mafiascum

[Chip Butty]

Well, this is my first ever loss in Mafia, in this forum or any other.

To answer duppin's question from a while back: No, I have never played live Mafia.

Well played scum team, especially Ranger.

At the end of the day, most Town just didn't play well. I think karnos and mhsmith did play well, by and large, and karnos turned out to be right in his prediction that if Ranger was scum, Town was doomed. Florestan and Shadow were meh, kuroi and BTD were terrible, and ploben should be awarded MVP by the scum team for his help in two mislynches and generally appearing scummy and drawing attention. I think the hyperaggressive way Panther went after Ranger, especially with the nasty tone, just did nothing to persuade me she was scum, and probably set up some resistance to the idea in my mind.

If I have one regret, it would be crumbling and voting BTD on D2. Vote park thing at the end was unfortunate but unintended. I'm still ill and my ever-evolving array of symptoms pulled me away from the computer in a hurry. I got back as soon as I was able. C'est la vie, I guess.

I had two of the three scum in my sights (duppin, Dunn) throughout, so not too bad. I had fun with the IC thing - at first, it was just that I found ploben's changing defense scummy, and the way that Dunn and duppin defended him against it made me suspicious of them too, but at some point there seemed to be so many other reasons to suspect ploben that it just became a way to troll him. His often vitriolic reactions did nothing to convince me he was Town.

That's about all I have strength for right now. Once again, well played, scum!

[Chip Butty]

Would have been nice if you (or anyone else) had made that "ploben town" case I kept asking for. Alas. I don't think any town played well tbh.

And I was going to do that today, as I said. But good ole chip y'know.

The guy who wanted Ranger to claim first and somehow came to conclusion Ranger was top tier town and I was the scummiest of scum after....not having that opinion at any previous point in the game including when he made his claim order list. Shrug

BS. You were a scum candidate of mine throughout because of your voting pattern.

You and ploben were on both D1 and D2 mislynches. Let us not forget that. It was largely due to that I scumread you, and Townread Ranger.

[Chip Butty]

If I had to pick two Town most responsible for the loss, it would be those two.

[Chip Butty]

Anyway, I'm out...

[ploben]

You stay classy Chip.

[PantherPunt]

If I had to pick two Town most responsible for the loss, it would be those two.

lol

bye Felicia

[PantherPunt]

Chip postgaming me like ploben was mafia

"You were scum bc you voted not ploben on d1 and d2!"

[Shadow_step]

Chip should be awarded mvp by the scum actually, he kept tunnelling on Ploben day 1 and duppin and dunn kept filling their pots with town credit.

[KuroiXHF]

Don't worry. It recently completed. Want me to let you know when I do the Mish mash version?

I don't think I'd be any good. I liked watched it for a while. I think I need to stick to mafia and get better at that first

It's less mafia and more medicine. And if anything, it's mostly common sense. It'd be for fun more than anything. Either way, had fun playing with you. Take care!

[ploben]

Thanks Kuroi and everyone. I'll post less spam and be more commited to voting scum reads.

[ploben]

Thanks Kuroi and everyone. I'll post less spam and be more commited to voting scum reads.

[mhsmith0]

Pretty clear I never make the claim I made as scum, as Thor said. There were about 50 better options for me. But Mafiascum

So if you're a wolf and ploben town, sure. But if you're buddies? Wouldn't you just hard sell the cc? I feel like it's the optimal play. Why wouldn't you?

[Thor665]

Pretty clear I never make the claim I made as scum, as Thor said. There were about 50 better options for me. But Mafiascum

So if you're a wolf and ploben town, sure. But if you're buddies? Wouldn't you just hard sell the cc? I feel like it's the optimal play. Why wouldn't you?

Your theory being if Panther/Ploben/X had been the scumteam they would sweat Ploben as a generic lynch?
So in this setup X or Panther is, by definition, the traitor.
So the question is would Panther throw himself on his sword to save Ploben if Ploben was scum?
The answer is - why bother?

Now, *maybe* Panther could have looked at Ranger's weak ass reveal and decided, 'lol, I gonna get dat lynchedto spare us a day' but I don't really see the point.
And Ranger already did a weak wrist reveal.
Maybe if in a theory world where scum feared Ranger was lying about not having alignment info this might make sense - but Ranger was already like 'no alignment info and I might be a RBer which...y'know, since no kills were stopped, we already know you got nothing at that stage, so it's at best a 50% bluff presuming it's even happening.

I wouldn't call it optimal.
I wouldn't call it far fetched insanity either.
But like everyone who had ever called Ploben town kept being lynched or nightkilled - I just don't see the theory protecting of Ploben.

[Dunnstral]

Just tell me Dunn, were you going to claim Cop at some point and use those enojis are your "crumb"?

Not really actually

That was honestly quite a surprise Dunnstral. We never even considered the possibility that you were the traitor. The first time it occured to me that you could be the traitor was when you didn't put down a vote Ranger earlier today. I just don't think town Dunnstral would be so careful wtih his votes if he was this confident in his read. (as you seemed to be)

Ranger said something like "If Dunnstral is mafia he's probably the traitor" and you said something about mafia probably knowing who the htraitor was, so I thought you guys knew

Looks like you thought it was Chip

I have to say, I wasn't expecting TWO of you to come across. Assuming we've got this right, then Ranger is confTown. Assuming no bussing, then the other scum are mhsmith and ploben. But there could well have been bussing. In fact, I think it is likely. But let's await the flip.

Wait so if I had just randomly voted panther you'd have kept your vote anyway

[mhsmith0]

(to panther)

Frankly, on a pure wagonomics basis, in a world where you're town and ranger wolf, I'd think that the D1 voting patterns would suggest dunn OR ploben (as the wolf who hopped off at the first good opportunity), and then reasonably likely duppin as the other wolf who also bussed and then held on to a distancing vote long after it stopped being meaningful.

(to ranger)

1) Do you think that it is reasonably possible that it's ploben town and Dunn/dupp wolves?

At (rare) times, I ALMOST had it. Alas

PS Given how easily the wolves quick-hammered after Chip's panther vote, I think my point about how ploben could not reasonably be t/t with ranger was actually true. Too bad I got the t side wrong

PPS I think this is also telling me that I need to either just spend a lot more time on the voting data, or actually learn how to behaviorally scum-hunt a whole lot better (or both).

[Dunnstral]

This setup kind of sucked I think

basically the 12 person setup, town is banking on goons to hit the traitor to score an extra lynch

I don't like how the setup is themed but the best option is basically to take nothing

[mhsmith0]

wp dunn, you managed to even fool your own teammates - seriously, that really does make me feel less stupid about how the game went

[Dunnstral]

I was actually working to keep ploben alive on days 1 and 2 and hard pushed his counters

But then ploben never got mislynched, though instead it looks like panther was suspected because of it

[mhsmith0]

but yeah, I'm not playing this setup again. By MS standards, it's flagrantly scum-sided. Panther ran it 10v3 with goon daytalk and 2 PR's... and I kinda think it should be 10v3 with goon daytalk and 3 PR's, given how OP the traitor role is here (immune to cop, tracker/RB while a goon is alive, and BP against vig or goon). Maybe force one of the PR's to be IC since that's a relatively weak role (gets shot early in most cases).

[mhsmith0]

I was actually working to keep ploben alive on days 1 and 2 and hard pushed his counters

But then ploben never got mislynched, though instead it looks like panther was suspected because of it

I actually did suspect you at times, but ploben looked so scummy to me I couldn't get out of the tunnel. If panther had convinced me that he and ploben were actually town I think I had a reasonable shot of getting there, though I doubt I'd have had a shot at convincing the town. Which is kind of like the LAST time I played against wolf!Ranger too

[ploben]

As long as we all agree NOT to buy Chip a beer when he finally turns 21.....

....in like 5 years.

[Ranger]

FUCK!

Hey, nobody's more surprised than I am!

For almost the entire game, I was convinced Chip Butty was our traitor, which is why I didn't kill him.
During the night, I did briefly consider mhsmith as the traitor, but it was only when he posted a "traitor-slip" that I thought it was him.
But I changed my mind again, and again, until I couldn't figure out which of {Chip Butty, mhsmith} it was.
I even, briefly, considered the possibility

you

would be the traitor! (Which is why I didn't want to lynch you today.)
I obviously knew PantherPunt couldn't be the traitor, but Dunnstral was literally the last person on my list of possibilities. I never ONCE thought it was Dunnstral, at any point in the game whatsoever.

That being said, a lot of my play this game was basically, "eh, this is a scumsided setup, we're gonna win no matter what because unrecruited traitor = ridiculously OP, so it doesn't really matter if I get lynched". I knew duppin was unlikely to be tied to me. I knew our traitor was unlikely to be lynched unless it was you. I knew that even if duppin did get lynched, the traitor would be able to use our deaths to their advantage and win, because we had no associatives with them.

In short, from the moment I got my scum role PM, I knew this game was gonna be a mafia win.

Ranger shouldn't get any credit.

Give credit where credit's due. I didn't need to be obviously town in order to win.
All I needed was to put on a good show. Make a grand display of things, and push against players pushing me. This alone would have ensured the win, even if I had been lynched, but also...I didn't get lynched. I positioned myself in a favorable manner. I also picked and chose which battles to fight, as to maintain the edge, and it worked. I won the fight against PantherPunt. We'd still have won if I had lost, but we still won. Plus, I was being townread by half the town. (Much to my surprise, since...I thought it was just the one, with the other as the traitor.) That means I certainly was doing

something

right, now, doesn't it?

Also, all the nightkills this game were my doing. Florestan was on the right track, and a kill that nobody would be able to trace back to us. Nobody did. You were on the right track, and a kill that nobody would be able to trace back to us. Nobody did. Both of those were large contributors to our victory. The only kill I wasn't sure of was karnos: we had a stalemate in blocs (though, as it turned out, it was Ranger + 3 townies, vs. 2 scum and 2 town, not that I knew that at the time), duppin was one member of the bloc and I wasn't gonna kill any of {PantherPunt, Dunnstral, ploben} both because they suspected me

and

I suspected them and killing them would end the stalemate. I knew it was a HUGE risk to kill karnos, effectively deliberately reducing our chances of getting a lynch we wanted, but I decided it was worth it, because

1. WIFOM would paint this as a kill I would never have made. (I was glad that part worked, but irate when my plan nearly backfired and people figured I did indeed not make the kill but was the traitor instead.)
2. duppin was in the enemy bloc (and as it turned out, so was Dunnstral), so in the WORST case scenario it would be a stalemate.
3. Even if I had been lynched, I held confidence duppin was well-positioned, and also knew that, since I didn't know who our traitor was, so would our traitor.

Between these factors, it was something I deemed an acceptable risk, and it ended up paying off.

Solid job wolves selling the "camp a vs camp b" structure.

You're gonna

really

hate me for this, but...
...You're the one who gave me the idea. :P

[Ranger]

Also game setup was "first to three lynches"with a bodyguard and tracker (unless wolves shoot traitor). That's BRUTAL for town.

Yep. I was able to IMMEDIATELY deduce the setup come D2, when nobody claimed a guilty on me. That told me it was two of {Bodyguard, Tracker, Roleblocker}. There was no vig, there was no IC, and if there was a goon cop the ONLY acceptable investigation for D1 would've been me. I also knew the math for the setup, and had researched it to find that the game had twice been a scum victory. Knowing the advantages of having an unrecruited traitor (they take over if the mafia die, they're not known by the mafia so associatives are out the window, they are immune to the goon cop, among others), and thinking the other powers were junk, the choice to stack nothing was basically an instant scum win.

That being said...don't think the extra mislynch woulda done you any good. I'd be either confirmed scum or lynched, but PantherPunt would not get any successful investigations (he'd die immediately), and...duppin (and although I didn't know it, Dunnstral) was positioned such that I don't think there's any chance you would have made both correct lynches. At some point, you'd mislynch, ending the game if you already mislynched PantherPunt, or if not, then you'd inevitably have another mislynch.

The moment I allied myself with three town players, there was no hope of victory. (I had all of karnos, mhsmith, and Chip Butty fooled, and was buddy-buddy with them

intentionally

.)

I have no idea why anyone wasn't voting Ranger this phase though, I really don't.

Smart play, planned from the beginning, but rapidly accelerated once D2 told me the setup. I knew what I needed to do, and what I needed to not do, and did it.

I also think town was hurt by the volume of posting. I believe there were 5 players with over 400 posts each - 4 town plus the mafia traitor. Which that much to analyze, it was fairly easy for the scum to just ride along for the win (and I don't say that to take away from mafia, that's a valid strategy).

Yeah, there was a lot of strategical egging fights on. I wanted those fights to happen. There was the

concern

that if I lost, all three would be seen as confirmed town, but that's why I didn't put absolutely 100% into them: to make it give room for paranoia to build that I was distancing without bussing. Sure enough, I got plenty of this!

Ps why was ranger obv scum instead of just inscrutable and unsharing (which I think is inside her town game too)?

Uh, because I was obviously scum?
This game was like Near Vanilla, Open 639, and Carbon 14 levels of obvious from me. (For reference: those three scum games are in my record books as being three of my weakest scum games, ever. A top-5 list would extend to include Machina and Mafiaception.) I did a lot of things that were objectively smart moves: I positioned myself strategically. But, and this is the big thing, I never did anything actually

town

. I did things which on a superficial level were objectively town, but here's the really important bit:
If I don't think I have the game solved, it's understandable that I would not push.
If I push, I don't necessarily have the game solved.
But if I think I have the game solved and I

don't

push, then there's probably a reason why. This game, I wasn't pushing, and it's because I was scum, happy with the gamestate. PantherPunt and ploben were pretty dead-on about that.