Mini Normal 1954: Iambic Tetramafia: Endgame

[CommKnight]

So I read through my predecessors posts and vote counts, admittingly, I'm skipping a lot of the other bit for now because I want to see interactions from mid-game view first before rereading some things to see if it lines up.

Honestly, I dislike Awoo's posts and votes, but whatever, I can't change them. Surprised he didn't get on Transcend, Mind you my first game with Transcend here, I ended up TR'ing him till LYLO after he was near hammer like Day 1 and his reactions got me suckered into TR'ing him. I also find it interesting that the list seems to be down to people not on Transcend, I think if scum wouldn't be stupid enough to not bus their partner. Someone on the Transcend wagon is lying about their reasons to be on it, which I hope to catch. But in a game this size I think it's safe to say 3-4 scum. Or 2-3 scum with possible 3rd party.

For now I TR Jingle due to position on wagon and because I don't feel like watching town mislynch him again. (I was in another game with his alt where town stupidly lynched myself and another when the plan I had suggested D1 would've nabbed us a scum and I think he was one of the slots that would've been cleared for 100% town as well). I was in dead chat yelling at town for being morons when they let RC control that shit.

But I can see the rest of the wagon as being possible scum and I find the mason claim very interesting. There's more than likely at least 3 scum and now with 1 scum dead and a flipped PT Cop, it's the perfect time to fake claim a PT with your buddy as "masons". Any thoughts on that one? It's possible they really are masons, but I'm skeptical about how quick the claim was after that particular role flip and what seems to be a "Hey buddy, want to claim mason with me" now that mafia day chat would be down (encryptor killed).

My best guess? 1 scum on Transcend, 1 scum off.

If there's anything people want my thoughts on, quote it and ask. Gonna take a bit for me to get fully into this and break down who's town/scum in this cluster of people, most of which I haven't played with yet.

[CommKnight]

skitter me n dunker are conftown. jingle is very close to being conftown. ironstove is probably town, and going on my blacklist. ucv is probtown. for me, that leaves fykus, taiho and ck. i agree that it would be nice to keep ck since he doesn't seem to be yet another troll BUT given awoo's play he's very likely to be scum with 50/50 taiho/fykus. am i missing anything else?

i hate Awoo's play honestly, so I get the want to lynch my slot. But to be fair I'm not Awoo. His replace out was weird but in general he's been less active on the site, so if I was outside looking in, I'd say it's not necessarily alignment indicative.

Also in my opinion, scum would be stupid to not be on their buddy if they're getting lynched, which also leads to my logic of scum being on Transcend. I can definitely see one-two scum off the wagon as well (pending how many total scum there are). But also, if Transcend is going down, who wouldn't bus him? I know I would. As either alignment, he might be "good" but he's not helpful in convincing anyone of anything. So he'd be super expendable.

@Jingle, you're right, my bad. I was pretty sure you were mislynched D3 after the first two bad flips. But still, the fact you were on the table as scum when what I was suggesting that game would've pegged the scum team to be very minimal options. Even if RC was town, it would've been the optimal play and now with hindsight hopefully town can see that (but I know many refuse to look back on that game and acknowledge that I had a point and it was the correct move on a day with zero actual facts for us).

I'm going to trust your judgement here for now and leave ETL and DD alone, but I'm not 100% sold on it. I'll reread soon-ish here after I get to interact with more people mid-game first just to see if things are lining up to fit them being town, but for now, I can't confirm or deny their towniness based on a mason claim. It's not unheard of even for a mason pair to have one town and one scum in it. So that is something to actually think about.

Taiho and Fykus I think 1 would be scum and 1 would be town. Those are two of the other main suspects, but one is more than likely just lynchbait. UCV and IS I haven't made a full opinion on yet, I still am keeping my eye on the Transcend wagon because I am certain a scummy is slipping through the reads into the town bloc somehow. The rest is most likely actually town, but one is scum.

So I think I'm at the point of saying: 1 scum in Taiho and Fykus. (Occam's Razor).
But also 1 scum in the Transcend wagon. (This I feel should be pretty obvious a fact because I have not played in one game where scum didn't bus a buddy toward the end of the wagon).

Just noting I'll be in/out tomorrow because the end of the month will soon be upon us and this semester is finally coming to an end so a lot of shit is due project wise. (4000-10,000 word essays and reports times 5).

[CommKnight]

VOTE: ck

Naked vote is bad vote.

VOTE: Fykus

I'll trust the rest of town on this one and you haven't even tried to make a case against me. So get hung scum.

[CommKnight]

@Jingle, I'm an X-shot PGO. So I say let them come at me.

[CommKnight]

With all the PRs revealed, it was definitely town sided (long before I replaced in or any of that).

I think the problem showed itself pretty well in this game. If you can create a solid town bloc using the roles in-game D2/D3 so that the number of town outnumber the scum in this bloc (as well as potential mislynches), they then just needed to lynch until they were right.

Essentially there were 5 town PRs vs mafia who's traitor doesn't matter because they can't communicate with them and the traitor cannot win it alone and could also be accidentally shot. The Encryptor was also sorta useless without 3+ mafia in the chat, because once he or his partner dies, the day chat will be gone anyway.

Then even-night roleblocker? You might as well switch it out for Rolecop so mafia can hunt for PRs. There were only 2 roles you could block, and one of them would easily use their ability N1, so really only the PT cop was blockable and only once every second night if you managed to track them down.

Definitely a few tweaks needed as mafia whoever they are any game will have a tough time breaking past the town PR wall that can easily clear themselves by interacting with one another.

[CommKnight]

The other way to fix it is to take away the town masons and have the town neighbourizer as that'd ping off the PT cop while not additionally auto-clearing 3 people.

[CommKnight]

3:10 but the 3rd mafia member hardly even counted.

Also I'd be saying the same thing if I was town this set-up. Don't blame me if I can pick apart something that is objectively unbalanced. You essentially have 5 people who can help clear each other which only leaves 5 VTs for possible mislynch. Which means scum need to kill all 5 PRs during the night. If you work it out, the town PRs are practically impossible to lynch because they can clear each other.

So.

D1 - VT (3:9)
N1 - PR (3:8)
D2 - VT (3:7)
N2 - PR (3:6)
D3 - VT (3:5)
N4 - PR (3:4)
D4 - VT (3:3)

^ This is how it'd need to go for a perfect scum victory, I suppose you could swap a single night kill on a PR for a VT but then you rely on mislynching the FINAL VT D4.

Now let's do a scenario where all VTs are killed and a single scummer is killed.

D1 - VT (3:9)
N1 - VT (3:8)
D2 - VT (3:7)
N2 - PR (3:6)
D3 - VT (3:5)
N4 - Traitor (2:5)
D5 - VT (2:4) [Final VT is now dead]
N5 - PR (2:3)
D6 - It is now LYLO with 2 mafia vs 3 town PRs. If it's one of the other mafia dead besides the Traitor, then it's still possible to mislynch the traitor by the mafia. Due to town PRs setup, all 3 can clear each other.

Keep in mind, if the town PRs are even half decent, you can't mislynch them.

It's actually very similar to Stacking The Deck. The masons being the initial 2 PRs and both being IC's, the town PT enabler allowing for a mafia ability plus the mafia traitor is weaker, which would be traded for day chat access for the two goons and the mafia roleblocker being limited to even nights could at least I suppose allow for one more town PR.

Anyway, maybe my opinion means nothing to you guys, but it was definitely unbalanced no matter who was town/mafia.

[CommKnight]

Not necessarily true. Especially once LYLO happens, the innocence of the traitor would come into question. Also nerfing the traitor to just lose because the other two lose instead of becoming a goon or even a kill-less traitor just adds to it.

Also did you look at how many days the mafia would need to go without losing one of their own? You'd need a seriously strong mafia team to be able to lynch all 5 VTs and still walk out of it with any chance of winning.

[CommKnight]

Scum had:

1) Day chat
2) Even-Night Roleblocker (Who would only be really effective against the PT cop)
3) Nerfed Traitor who cannot win on their own.

So while the potential innocent is there, you completely voided it by making the traitor lose the moment the two main mafia members die. It's like having a suicidal Godfather. So even if the traitor got cleared and town-read (and would still need to survive a LYLO situation alone), the PT cop only needs to find the other two mafia. If the PT cop finds the Masons, then the PT Enabler can actually vouch for them (like they did in this game). The neighbourizer while it is lynchable, I generally see it as town in most games so far. Yet to see a scum one.

You have a lot of town PRs that can essentially vouch for each other and a seriously nerfed scum team. Which is more of a 2+1:10 where the +1 is useless (and if they get cleared by town could be killed by mafia).

[CommKnight]

Yeah, go ahead and release Mafia PT, I didn't really have much in it besides some thoughts on where to go and post-lynch thoughts. Most of the chat is between Awoo, Transcend and the other scum.

[CommKnight]

Also that I was killed N2(ish) because I would have considered taiho clear.

The problem here is that people still don't seem to understand that this "advantage" was completely negated by the fact the traitor auto-loses if both other mafia are lynched.

Even if I didn't kill you, if at any point during the game before LYLO I was lynched instead of the final town, Taiho and mafia loses.

I think what should've happened is that Taiho takes over the night kill as a lone mafia without PT.

But people seem to disagree while citing the advantage the traitor had, when he had none because him staying alive wouldn't matter in the grand scheme of things. Even if he managed to avoid the night kills and noose after being cleared, with just myself alive in an already screwed position, it just wouldn't have mattered.

Like I don't understand what is so complicated to understand that part of the imbalance here.

[CommKnight]

Well what you could do is if it were to become open, is to make all the roles "possible" but to have only 3 picked from them. (Mason would take up two though if it was rolled).

You leave room for fake claims and the traitor can potentially work on outing the PRs with a fake claim if the situation looks like it's going down hill for scum if there's too many PRs still in play.

Just a suggestion. I think it'd balance it pretty well then. (Plus the cop would know there's a traitor so no one is "auto-cleared").

[CommKnight]

Oh look, someone else seen the imbalance and actually broke it down.