Mini Normal 1920: Those IDIOTS! (Spoilered Dead)

[mastina]

SETUP:

Town:

Loyal Cop (MordyS/GreyICE)
Ascetic Townie (Gamma Emerald/Bomberman/ReplacedIn)
Weak Doctor (aronagrundy)
Macho Neapolitan (Lil Uzi Vert)
VT x6 (EeveeLution Army, gerryoat, iDanyboy, Mulch, Formerfish, Tchill13)

Mafia:

Roleblocker (LmkGuy/Fro99er/Alisae)
Goon x2 (MMM/Chickadee, massive)

-Mafia have daychat.
-Mafia may both kill and action.
-Loyal Cop gets results in the form of "town", "not town" (not possible but would be miller), or "no result".
-Neapolitan gets results in the form of "Vanilla Townie", "Not a Vanilla Townie", or "no result".

ROLE DISTRIBUTION (by playerlist):
MordyS/GreyICE--Loyal Cop
EeveeLution Army--VT
LmkGuy/Fro99er/Alisae--Mafia Roleblocker
aronagrundy--Weak Doctor
gerryoat--VT
Gamma Emerald/Bomberman/ReplacedIn--Ascetic Townie
iDanyboy--VT
Mulch--VT
Formerfish--VT
Lil Uzi Vert--Macho Neapolitan
Tchill13--VT
MMM/Chickadee--Mafia Goon
massive--Mafia Goon

Spoiler: People with Access

• mastina
  
• nancy
  
• Nexus
  
• mhsmith0
  
• mykonian
  
• MMM
  
• Tchill13
  
• ThinkBig
  
• gerryoat
  
• Gamma Emerald
  
• JaeReed
  
• Formerfish
  
• Mulch

[mastina]

So did you use jailkeeper over doctor? It's the obvious solution, not only screwing cop+doctor but actually turning the cop into a paranoid cop if they're doctored. And interaction with the roleblocker. While telling me my results can be fucky.

Not bad.

He's not too terribly far off the mark. I did fuck with the interactions quite a bit. (It's becoming a bit of a specialty of mine. )

Though, I don't think LUV is going to claim his Macho modifier, which means if/when LUV is forced to claim, GreyICE is going to be absolutely convinced LUV is scum because of this.

That's just a misfortune of the types of players to get the roles though. LUV is a gambity person and so would think claiming truthfully would be a bad idea; GreyICE is sharp and can see through bullshit and so if LUV did gambit then GreyICE would be able to tell it was a lie yet would prolly not come to the conclusion it was a

town

lie. As a result, GreyICE goes after LUV. Buuuuuut, if LUV were to truthfully claim the Macho modifier, then GreyICE would probably put two and two together and realize they're both town because Loyal Cop + Macho Neapolitan = built around the same mechanic.

GreyICE is probably going to rant at me and say that these interactions are terrible and that it was imbalanced if he sees both the other two town roles claim though. Personal opinion: interactions are unusual and interesting, and have the potential to be really swingy, but are mostly balanced and if there's any bias at all, it's against the town. (The mafia having a full roleblocker is a bit much in my opinion and it was originally gated but reviewer decision was to bump it from gated to full as a compromise, so.)

[nancy]

I am here. <3

[nancy]

Welcome, Tchill13!

[nancy]

(Yes, your reads were of course excellent, as per usual with the day 1 mislynch.

Well, at least until you started getting lynched, then you lost it a bit.

)

[Tchill13]

Mulch put here after the role blocker on only 3 or 4 posts lol. That's amazing.

[Tchill13]

*out here. Yeah I got a little frustrated as I was being mocked a bit. It's all good though.

[nancy]

*hugs*

I'm sorry. Mafia can be hurtful sometimes.

[Tchill13]

I was just trying a new play style. I loathe day ones and they are the least entertaining to me. I guess I should just lurk and keep posting at a minimum. I played for to be a mislynch slot and I guess I just took it too far haha. Oh well. Greyice mentioned my meta but failed to notice my scum games were way more cautious so that felt off. I was very surprised he wasn't scum. My word had no weight very early in the game though.

[nancy]

I love day 1 personally. But I know that some people don't.

[Tchill13]

Oh please explain why. Could give me a new perspective.

[nancy]

Well it's where you get to lay the foundation for the rest of the game and figure out the playerlist and how interactions are going to go. Everything's a blank slate so you get to make the game whatever you want it to be. Aside from that it's also not really any different from any other day. You don't have any flips but it's a lot of the same work figuring out alignment and sorting people. Day 1 is where you kind of try to figure out where your townreads might be and then you consolidate that on day 2 and aim for a few hard townreads and one or two scumreads to get you through the rest of the game. Then you gradually begin to sort the rest of the table as the game progresses. I love day 1 in particular because figuring out the direction of all that is a lot of fun and it's where you have the most freedom.

If you look at the way ReplacedIn has approached the game since taking his slot you should be able to see what I mean. He's developed 3-5 slots that he think have a decent chance of being scum, 3-5 slots that have a decent chance of being town, and maybe 1-2 slots that could be hard townreads for him. Yes he had a bad read on MMM and you but he's doing the right things and he's already shown that he's able to self-correct since Chickadee is no longer in his townreads. He immediately has rapport with those 3-5 slots that he thinks might be town and he hasn't mistreated the slots he thinks might be scum so he's put himself in a decently influential position for day 2 and beyond.

Also ftr I actually haven't been following the game that closely but I don't really know why people were scumreading you and the wagon on you was really really gross and should've rang alarm bells for ReplacedIn but I guess he believed in that scumread enough that he wasn't paying attention in the right ways. (He'd probably have been a little frustrated that the wagon got hammered when it did.) I don't know why everyone just ignored LUV on MMM either. Seems a little like a case of bad townies scumreading people with different reads than them. But I'm rambling and sick so I don't know if any of this was actually coherent.

[Tchill13]

I appreciate the time you took to offer insight. As a newer player I'm more confident in my reads after a lynch flip and creating reads from there rather than interaction. I'll keep your philosophy in mind though that is pretty helpful. I'll try to approach them a lot like replacedin has like you were saying. That seems the best way to do it. I played pretty sloppily. I'll try to focus on setting the direction for the game instead of focusing on the fact that I feel like my reads aren't going to be good until day 2. That's just pessimistic.

[nancy]

Yeah, you're defeating yourself before you've even begun if you approach the game assuming your reads are going to be bad. You don't want to try to solve the whole game on day 1 or even day 2, you just want to try and develop a sense of where you think your reads might be going and try to work from there. If you're already admitting that you think you played sloppily this game then you're in the right mindset and what you need to do from here is identify what made you play sloppily, what your weaknesses are try to address those in future games and clean up your play a little. And again you shouldn't expect everything to happen once. Improving your play takes time and a lot of failure. I used to be a VI and it took playing some really really horrible games to figure out what was really wrong with my play and the way I was approaching games and I'm still learning and I still have a long way to go. I'm a good enough player to acknowledge that ReplacedIn is on another level to me (although I might just be saying that because I know who his main is but still, his approach to this game has been kind of perfect despite him being scum MVP today) and it's seeing how those other players do things that is one of the best ways I learn to play better. I didn't just learn how to play mafia from playing mafia, I learned by watching other people and emulating the parts of their play that I found worked for me best. (And I learned what worked for me best by making a fuckton of mistakes and fixing things the hard way.)

Your reads were good. I think you should work on being more transparently town, showing the rest of town that you are town so that they know they can trust you and potentially also trust those reads (if they decide you are good at getting accurate reads). Probably the best way to do that is to show how you've sorted players the way you have. It won't always guarantee that people will recognize that you're town because town are notoriously bad at recognizing each other, but if you're with good town players it should. Showing that work in your reads is also an excellent way to make sure that your reads aren't bad, because you can find flaws in them easier that way, and other can people can show you the flaws too (although scum will probably try to make flaws where there aren't any or exploit the flaws that are there into a scumread on you or to pocket you and use them against you later).

[ThinkBig]

I really like the setup.

[mastina]

That tends to be the case with mastina-modded games.

[ThinkBig]

Indeed it is quite creative which I love

[mastina]

Interestingly, the town is either really fucked or really not bad off: the scum threw around the idea of killing either GreyICE or LUV (the two players they most need to kill, both of whom are currently wide open), but also have thrown around the idea of killing masons who have apparently claimed in spite of not existing (which would hurt them), and even worse was the idea of killing ReplacedIn (whose role is negative utility to the town especially since it is going unclaimed).

[Tchill13]

Yeah there's a lot of roles I haven't played with yet. Definitely interesting.

[mastina]

The main reviewer concern with the setup (which the only modification I made from the original was making the scum's nonconsecutive roleblocker into a full roleblocker) was that the town has essentially three investigatives with the opportunity for a follow-the-cop situation to arise. And the setup is admittedly swingy. Depending on night actions, things can go REALLY well for the town/scum, or go REALLY badly for the town/scum.

Fortunately, as things are, I think that overall we're going to get a reasonably balanced outcome. I don't think we'll deal with a scum sweep, but if it happens it'll be a hard-fought victory and rely on player skill rather than good/bad luck. I also am pretty sure this will not definitively be an overwhelming town victory; if the town wins, it'll be something they had to fight hard to earn, not something their power roles handed them on a silver platter.

Before the game began I predicted that with the playerlist distribution this would be a town win, though with Fro99er/Chickadee both replacing into the scumteam, I'm less sure than before. Then again...ReplacedIn is an obvious alt of god only knows what scummer so there's no way to judge ReplacedIn's skill level since ReplacedIn being a skilled player would help the town a lot. And GreyICE has a very good head for breaking/gaming setups. He might not figure out the exact combo immediately (and might rant at me

for

this exact combo, we'll have to see when he eventually sees it), but he'd get it reasonably close and once he crossreferences what he can figure out with what his reads are, then I'm pretty sure that he'd be able to singlehandedly win the game for the town.

So I'd say scum are closer to winning than they originally were, but tonight might decide their fate in the game. If they kill one of the "masons", it will confirm the other as town anyway (because the scum wouldn't have made that nightkill if they knew it was a lie), while allowing the strongest town players (both the "masons" aren't among the players I expect to gamesolve, whereas two key power roles I

do

expect to gamesolve even had they rolled vanilla) to live and use their roles. Meaning my bet's still on a town win if scum decide to do what they are thinking of doing.

We'll just have to see though.

[nancy]

Oh ReplacedIn is Ascetic. I'm guessing he's hoping to rely on being obvtown enough not to attract an invest.

[mastina]

Night One Night Actions

:

GreyICE

loyal cops

Formerfish

. (Result:

Formerfish is Town

No Result;

roleblocked by Fro99er

.)

aronagrundy

weak doctors

Mulch

. (Result: Mulch is protected; aronagrundy survives.)

Lil Uzi Vert

Neapolitans

Chickadee

. (Result: Chickadee is Not Vanilla Townie.)

massive

nightkills

gerryoat

. (Result: gerryoat is set to die.)

Fro99er

roleblocks

GreyICE

. (Result: GreyICE's night action fails.)

[nancy]

Ho ho a guilty on the board.

[Tchill13]

It'll be interesting to see what they do with that. That's always a tricky situation because you don't want to out a pr.

[mastina]

Chickadee hardclaimed VT so it's a hardguilty actually.