The Syndicate

I am also intrigued by that.

Also, the new setup as 1-Shot Mafia Strongman; what is that role?

No, I didn't slip; I did it on purpose. I was the JOAT, not the 1-Shot Mafia Vig, which is what I theorized had happened.

Inawordyes wrote:

Metalmarsh89 wrote:

Marco wrote:Private threads would be great, but mafia is just a small part of the website I come from and some of the higher staff like to keep us on a tight leash, so we don't have any such options. QT's are the perfect alternative. They're really convenient for role madness games as there's so many abilities, players, roles, gambits, etc to keep track of. On our board, 20 player games are considered small and there're usually 2-3 60+ player games each year (average game size is around 25-30 players, and the preferable size is generally ~40). And most mafia teams usually have each member with 2-3 abilties with a Godfather (and maybe Backup) having 4-5. And a lot of games go beyond this. So you can see how chatrooms would be a big inconvenience.

The only downside I've come across is if there is a role in the game that gains nightly BTSC with a different player each night. It makes much more sense to create Chatzy rooms each time rather than a new private thread.

How we do this on MM is to have a dedicated sister subforum along side each game name, and then have a bunch of sub-subforums within there for each type (we have BTSC A-F, for Mafia and then any other possible multi-factional games) as well as a Ghosties sub-subforum. Each player with some sort if BTSC access has the privilege to see and post in their specific sub-subforum, but not the others. In examples like what you mentioned, the nightly BTSCs can be moved into the Ghosties sub-subforum. Any dead players or spectators would be able to see all the sub forums.

The only thing you need is a mod to clear the permissions and stuff between games and set up permissions for players during games as needed, which could always be an extension of the MoD since games always have one here.

Yeah, I've done this for my past couple of games in fact, and I personally am OK with it; some people prefer the chatzy threads. Just depends on what the host wants to use.

Thanks for the suggestion! I do remember now that a QT was used for last year's Champions game on Turnip Head's team. I started playing mafia nearly 6 years ago now on Lostpedia-based mafia communities and chatzy was the go-to service for chatrooms by that time already, so it's stuck around for familiarity and because people like the real time chat feel of it.

Recently we've done some on-site private threads, as Jay mentioned, and some people like them but some people really don't because you have to be logged in to the site and it doesn't have the real time aspect.

Marco wrote:Not to mention, multiple mafia factions are the norm. And it's also very common to find Masons, cultists, etc. It also lets the Host have a tight leash on everything and make sure everything goes perfectly.

That's actually the norm historically here as well, though the largest game I've ever seen on an LP-based site I think was 50 players, so our games don't get quite as high. Over the past year we added the Heist format for simpler games; other than that, I played predominantly 20-40 player role madness games for most of my career without even knowing of anything else.

Inawordyes wrote:

MovingPictures07 wrote:

Golden wrote:However... the moment when I genuinely believed MP was town was doing my iso towards the end of day 4. Before then it was mostly show. Even after that I was thinking 'this does remind me of me in Economics' - so well played MP, really well played.

Thanks, Golden, and thanks to everyone else who said kind words as well. I really worked hard on that IAWY bus; I tried to nail him with criticisms of specific content, and I'm not sure how much he purposefully laid out there for me but I kept taking it.

Some of it, yeah. Once I realized I was always getting lynched I started making subtle scummy mistakes for you to pick up on so your case would be better when you exposed then all, if you exposed them all. I mostly just stayed positive though! No need to go out of the game with a butter tongue.

A butter tongue, yeah, that'd be problematic... especially with all these cookies!

Thanks, IAWY! Definitely couldn't have done it without you.

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:I'll also state that any setup with a cop w/ n0 check would probably be a different story. That is a major balance swing.

So glad I didn't have to deal with a cop this game.

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:I think the biggest balance issue with the original matrix was the 13 vs. 4 ratio. Removing the extra mafia kills helps, but I'm still not sure that has been adequately addressed. I understand 17 players allows them to equalize each game, and that including a rogue role would be an unfair challenge to whoever gets it in the effort to advance to the finals.

I think town needs more strength. Not a ton more, but something.

13 vs. 4 is tough, yeah. Doesn't take too many mislynches before town is in critical zone.

Zexy wrote:Well, the mafia JOAT was THE single most unbalanced mafia role, no wonder it got cut.
thankfully there was enough time for said cuts to be made.

Definitely true! Was a fun role though.

Zexy wrote:So the MVP wolf was helping us feel better for our games as well as trying to dumb our meta down so that we look better in the Champs... lol, thanks?

Actually, the Matrix12 setup used in the Championship was changed, scum was pretty much nerfed because the one we played is considered very pro-scum (my sample of 2 games that were both scum wins may or may not be able to prove that :P)
In this new Matrix12, scum always know what setup they are in as soon as Day 1, so there won't be a situation like "maybe the Mason or the Jailkeeper setup" in the champs...

Yeah, I realized right away that my 1-shot definitely was unbalanced, and I'm unfamiliar with these setups. Good thing that Thingyman changed them before the tournament's start.

Golden wrote:

MovingPictures07 wrote:

Golden wrote:Who did you have pegged as jailkeeper. Did I ever give away even a hint that I was tpr?

The moment I realized we were in setup F and I found out I was JKed n2, I thought it was you. Wasn't 100% sure though, but I was pretty sure it was someone who was voicing trust of me, and of those people my gut screamed it was you. I was wanting to keep you alive, however, and preferred finding the town vig first. I thought, as long as I can keep myself clean in thread, the JKer doesn't present nearly as much threat to me. There's no telling, in contrast, whether the town vig will kill me or my teammates at any time.

Funnily enough, I came out of that jailkeep with less trust of you. You had sort of given away the possibility of being either mafia or tpr through appearing to have knowledge of the setup, and then I had proved that you weren't one by having two kills that night. There were all sorts of pieces of evidence that I had available that in the end I didn't listen to... you and sig post night one was the biggest one. You both slipped and I let it be

Well, to be fair, I "slipped" 1-Shot Mafia Vigilante on purpose, knowing that it was incorrect and that I was the JOAT, but it definitely backfired and potentially exposed that I might have had inside information, even if not exactly for the right reasons.

Zexy wrote:

MovingPictures07 wrote:Thanks, Zexy! Looking forward to playing with you on Bulbagarden and cheering you on in Game 4!

I killed Zexy partially because I wasn't sure whether the setup was 3 or F just yet, and I strongly suspected you two were Town Masons if we were in Setup 3.

You are welcome! It's really awesome I'm in the same game with Golden.

Wow! I died and felt sad because I thought the town vig killed me for inactivity... but actually getting a kill when that inactive is quite the feat, the best I could've done as an inactive VT with not-so-good reads, at least. I'm feeling a bit more comfortable about this game despite its outcome now

That's exactly what I intended.

Golden wrote:Who did you have pegged as jailkeeper. Did I ever give away even a hint that I was tpr?

The moment I realized we were in setup F and I found out I was JKed n2, I thought it was you. Wasn't 100% sure though, but I was pretty sure it was someone who was voicing trust of me, and of those people my gut screamed it was you. I was wanting to keep you alive, however, and preferred finding the town vig first. I thought, as long as I can keep myself clean in thread, the JKer doesn't present nearly as much threat to me. There's no telling, in contrast, whether the town vig will kill me or my teammates at any time.

Thanks, Zexy! Looking forward to playing with you on Bulbagarden and cheering you on in Game 4!

Golden wrote:Turns out you weren't vigged, zexy.

MP did a good job of taking out the people I trusted.

I killed Zexy partially because I wasn't sure whether the setup was 3 or F just yet, and I strongly suspected you two were Town Masons if we were in Setup 3.

Golden wrote:One final note.

I think my unmitigated failure in the face of my championships foes is about the best I could have hoped for out of this game. I have reduced the target on my back beautifully

That was my plan all along.

Nice.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:Pie Mafia: coming soon to a Syndicate near you.

Not to be confused with Pi Mafia, which is also in the works. :P

Is this seriously a thing? I'll have to play.

Cookies > Pie > Brownies > others > Cake

Cookies are pretty great.

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:

MovingPictures07 wrote:

Metalmarsh89 wrote:That's ok, I'm used to being the only one in the Oatmeal Raisin Cookie club.

I'm in it too! They're actually my favorite.

At least our music tastes cross somewhat, right? After all, isn't that the only thing that really matters?

Golden wrote:

MovingPictures07 wrote:

Golden wrote:However... the moment when I genuinely believed MP was town was doing my iso towards the end of day 4. Before then it was mostly show. Even after that I was thinking 'this does remind me of me in Economics' - so well played MP, really well played.

You sneak! I did wonder why you were buddying me so much, but I figured you were being honest.

The moment I was JKed n2 though, my instinct was that you were the JK. I tried to role check MM that night and it failed.

I also tried to specifically paint you as a tpr on day two without it looking like I was doing it with the goal f baiting a kill attempt on you.

Yes! I was like, what are you doing?

Metalmarsh89 wrote:That's ok, I'm used to being the only one in the Oatmeal Raisin Cookie club.

I'm in it too! They're actually my favorite.

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:MP would have clearly been bean dip though.

Golden wrote:

MovingPictures07 wrote:With that said, when Golden came to the opposite conclusion re: sig and IAWY as I did a bit over halfway through d4, I was seriously concerned.

Soneji wasn't there. Zebra was upset with me and not willing to engage with me. I really wanted to have discussion around sig but with only you willing to talk to me...

That's why it worked, ultimately.

Very true. I was still scared shitless though. :P

And when I was saying I wanted Scotty and Soneji to show up, I was hoping they wouldn't. I was yelling at the screen, DON'T COME BACK!

Golden wrote:

MovingPictures07 wrote:I realize though that this game means I'm probably going to get policy lynched forever and never trusted again, so maybe I'll slink away from playing for long enough that people forget about it...

That's what I thought about eco, and then I won another 6 or something games for the year.

Yeah, I don't know though. :P

Golden wrote:

Silverwolf wrote:One other thing I wanted to mention is that town needs town blocs to beat out scum. This means I always town hunt. If I can find them and PoE out the scum, then town has a chance. The hard part is when town doesn't post much because I will try to lynch low content posters starting D2 usually.

I agree. I did real difficulty finding my town block this game. I'm most gutted that I didn't jailkeep you on day one and also Marco on day 3 (who I thought I'd sent in a PM to jailkeep).

I was searching for a "town" block myself; I was hoping it could be me, you, MM, Marco, and/or Dizzy, but it didn't quite work out.

Golden wrote:However... the moment when I genuinely believed MP was town was doing my iso towards the end of day 4. Before then it was mostly show. Even after that I was thinking 'this does remind me of me in Economics' - so well played MP, really well played.

Thanks, Golden, and thanks to everyone else who said kind words as well. I really worked hard on that IAWY bus; I tried to nail him with criticisms of specific content, and I'm not sure how much he purposefully laid out there for me but I kept taking it.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:Thanks Golden for jailkeeping MP on Night 2. Had you not, I'd have likely been lynched Day 3 or killed Night 3, and you'd still be alive.

Oh yeah, I was going to lynch you hard on d3 if you came back power role. ika, sig, and I even came up with a word/smiley code... but we hadn't considered that it would fail.

So I put "fail" in OT regarding my exam and underlined it to hopefully get their attention.

Golden wrote:However... the moment when I genuinely believed MP was town was doing my iso towards the end of day 4. Before then it was mostly show. Even after that I was thinking 'this does remind me of me in Economics' - so well played MP, really well played.

You sneak! I did wonder why you were buddying me so much, but I figured you were being honest.

The moment I was JKed n2 though, my instinct was that you were the JK. I tried to role check MM that night and it failed.

Ricochet wrote:

MovingPictures07 wrote:

Ricochet wrote:Soo... should we have sent MP instead?

Interesting. I had a vibe, watching from afar, that MP busting his ISOs is disingenuous, but I didn't really spectate this very much.

Also, lol, ika literally does what he claims all the time he'd do as scum (kill Silverwolf on N1) and nobody gives a shit. And he survives the game. And wins.

I was wondering how you'd be reading me if you were playing.

Well your ISO style itself is so different than my approach or Jay's, with the impression that it's tailored according to other website's ISO styles and standards(dunno if that's true or not btw), hence making me question a bit where are you going with it.

But as for it being a scumtell, I don't think it's in any way serious. You've done this in Watchmen and was civ, so...

How is it different? Just curious on your take there.

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:For some reason I really want a cookie right now.

Yes! I know you didn't have a "theme", but I loved the cookie flips.

Also, oatmeal raisin is awesome.

What was my cookie?

Oh, and I forgot to say, although it was implied with a previous post: Thanks for the banners as well, Jay.

And thanks as well to Dom. You were an incredibly great MoD.

I admittedly can't wait to see Golden and MM's faces (wish I could IRL), but I better leave for a while to actually, you know, do things not mafia and stop spamming a bunch of thoughts that you all probably don't care about. I just can't express how much of my mind space this game took up; I almost always invest myself in games, but I was beyond extreme investment in this one, and it's so satisfying to be able to call it a win.

To add to that:

Obviously, I decided to play it three different ways -- hard bus with IAWY, hard bus then appropriate lift off of ika, and then initial confusion eventually leading to town read of sig. I tried to develop them all as organically as possible and continually update my feelings with the tide of the thread. While I obviously had to be away from the thread for extended periods due to RL reasons, it also helped me assess what the thread was saying while I was gone, which inevitably influenced how I approached all three situations. It was difficult to suppress my instinctual urge to bus sig, especially since he tends to bring suspicion upon himself (like me), but I managed it.

With that said, when Golden came to the opposite conclusion re: sig and IAWY as I did a bit over halfway through d4, I was seriously concerned. I'm glad we could still keep the lynch on zebra or Wilgy, because a sig flip might have gotten people seriously questioning me, but I had the "I was just wrong" defense all ready to go as well as my clean IAWY interactions as proof I wasn't bad.

Ricochet wrote:Soo... should we have sent MP instead?

Interesting. I had a vibe, watching from afar, that MP busting his ISOs is disingenuous, but I didn't really spectate this very much.

Also, lol, ika literally does what he claims all the time he'd do as scum (kill Silverwolf on N1) and nobody gives a shit. And he survives the game. And wins.

I was wondering how you'd be reading me if you were playing.

Yeah honestly, my initial ika play was because I thought Silverwolf was going to burn him by the end of d1, but obviously everything took a different turn. Especially due to how d1 progressed, I had to ask myself often and pretty much from the getgo if I wanted to bus any of my teammates; if so, which ones, and then how I wanted to do it.

I realize though that this game means I'm probably going to get policy lynched forever and never trusted again, so maybe I'll slink away from playing for long enough that people forget about it...

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:

MovingPictures07 wrote:You and I need to be mafia teammates one day.

We'd ISO one another's ISOs and the ensuing ISOception would implode the universe.

or just make one of us die at our laptops

Too true.

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:My biggest regret is that I couldn't play in the game myself. I hated watching the competitive energy and ego of this game without the ability to insert my JJJ ass right into the madness.

That would have been truly awesome.

You and I need to be mafia teammates one day.

This is going to sound insane, but I kept trying to set myself up as much as possible for specific F3 situations, and was secretly hoping the game would progress to that point even if it meant we could have won otherwise with more players left alive. My ideal F3 situation was with Golden and MM, or Golden with Soneji. I just thought it'd be fun to be in that situation.

I used to have winners' banners in my sig along with all my host ones, but I removed them once I realized I'd be focusing much more on hosting and admin stuff rather than playing.

I have to make an exception for this one though. Thanks again for the game, Jay. It was so much fun and served as a very welcome distraction for me amid these last couple weeks of the semester, although I'm sure I'll be hating life hereafter. I'm just glad the game ended now, actually, I wasn't looking forward to finding time today and tomorrow, at a minimum.

You all were a really great group of players too. This was an awesome game.

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:I'll also say that I don't think this original Matrix12 is balanced very well (at least not setup F as we played in). A 13 vs. 4 ratio is already difficult to work with, and giving the mafia team an extra kill on top of that is too much. Town had a decent arsenal of powers to combat that, but not enough. Thankfully they've tweaked the matrix at MU and it ought to be a bit better now that the tournament games have started.

That's not to take anything away from this mafia team, who clearly deserved to win.

I'm with you there; the extra kill right off the bat really helped us narrow down the numbers early, and it helped specifically because it was Epi.

But yeah, I still worked my sock ass for this win.

Silverwolf wrote:Also sorry MM if I was harsh on the vig. It is not easy to make that call. I usually go for lurkers if I can't find a truly scummy player but that's me.

Yeah, being the vig isn't easy for sure.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:

MovingPictures07 wrote:ika's emotion seems sincere to me. I'm switching back.

VOTE DRWILGY

Term paper time. Be back later. Then I guess I'll revisit my IAWY interaction analyses and try performing some arbitrary paired analysis of the five of you? Not sure what else to do at this stage.

We could probably talk about how awful our town vig has been.

Two kills between Zexy, Dyslexicon, Golden, and Soneji is just awful.

Oh man, MM.

Don't sweat it. It's still not as bad as some of my games. Lol.

Wow, so MM was the vig? Nicely done, I couldn't hunt you down, MM, because you concealed your identity through your choice of kills. Shame you had such bad hits though. I'd be interested in hearing your thought process.

Also, shameless self-promotion, but if any of you all are wanting to play another Matrix game here, I've developed my own Matrix (and had JJJ help me with balancing it meticulously) and will be hosting a series of games over a long period of time with it.

The first game in the series is a 15-player 48/24 cycle semi-open Matrix8 setup themed off of Futurama and it's currently in sign-ups in anticipation of this game ending. Also, the game will be utilizing sockpuppet accounts and encourages tons of roleplaying, so all of you will be controlling a second account I give you based on your character, so your fellow players won't even know you're playing.

Some of you may have seen it already, but I wanted to make sure to mention it especially for our newer folks, but for all of your benefit.

If you want to play, please follow the thread instructions, and I'd be more than glad to have you. It should be a blast.

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:And hey, a message to the town vigilante:

Hold your head high. You're the one who had to pull the trigger, so don't mind any criticism. Shit happens, it's Mafia.

Yes, this. I've pulled many gambits before and most of them have failed spectacularly. I even faked a red cop peek as VT before on the actual cop, got myself lynched and him NKed right before he could solve the game by POE.

I also agree with sig that pulling the trigger on Golden was a huge risk that could have potentially paid off HUGE. I was secretly afraid that the vig was going to shoot me, even though I thought it was probably unlikely.

Silverwolf wrote:

MovingPictures07 wrote:

Silverwolf wrote:Effort is never indicative of alignment. If Ika is tunneling he either is a PR w results or its his scum team mate. He will also do it to me if I'm scum in a game and he catches me. Just an FYI no matter hi well you know someone, you should never rely solely on meta alone to read them. Good job scum team and congratulations on the win. Whoever the vig is, should hide their head in shame.

I don't agree with this; it can be. Mafia have to fabricate literally all of their content. It was difficult for me to do that, some of you didn't make it easy.

But it never is indicative with some players, including me.

I've learned through 2 years and numerous games, that tow reading someone off effort, is never a good idea. I do think you did a great job. Don't get me wrong. Sig and ika did too. This is just a lesson for future games.

I don't disagree at all; it shouldn't be the sole reason for reading anyone as town. It can be one of many indicators to consider though, I'd say, but it definitely depends on the person. Either way, I agree that it shouldn't be given primary or even heavy consideration, especially without considering the possibility of that player scum supatowning like I was.

Thanks, I appreciate it.

I'm going to need a playing break again after this one. It was exhausting.

ika wrote:

MovingPictures07 wrote:

Dyslexicon wrote:That "MP has reads on all his null-ISOs" from IAWY makes so much sense now. Oh hindsight.

Yeah.

Not having day chat was incredibly paralyzing and foreign to me, especially at first. I wanted to tell IAWY and ika many things, lol, and I was especially frustrated by ika only going after his teammates, but the WIFOM worked out I suppose. I didn't feel it wasn't an easy game, despite the fact that there were still 3 of us alive at the end. I kept worrying about every single post I made; I tried my absolute best to make sure I was approaching the game as a townie. It was difficult to avoid confirmation bias, no doubt.

if you tried to tell me what to do i would of 100% ignored you. my scum play is complied of trying to forget my allies or bussing them to oblivion. i set an agenda to play as scum and will commonly ignore my buddies stuff to lack an awarenss or set up everything i need to do

I don't tell people how to play. I don't like people telling me how to play; furthermore, I think it's inappropriate. Trying to strategize is one thing, but trying to tell someone else how to play is another.

Nonetheless, it was difficult for me to navigate everything you and the rest of the team were doing without a day chat, especially since I'm very accustomed to it, but in the end it worked out great, obviously. It was great to get to play with you and get knowledge of your mafia game firsthand, and thanks for being a part of the team.

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:

MovingPictures07 wrote:

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:This was definitely the best game I've ever seen MP play. Silverwolf displayed her intuitive strengths again on Day 1 and put MP under serious pressure, but he evaded that and ended up controlling the game wire-to-wire. Bravo, sir.

I feel like I finally came into my own this game. It was really difficult, but I finally played a game where I felt like I largely avoided major missteps as mafia, and could more faithfully replicate my town meta than usual.

I definitely am very proud of this win. It may be the sweetest one I've ever had.

There should be no doubt that you were a deserving part of the conversation for who should represent The Syndicate, and if Golden ever encounters a need for replacement his game slot will be in good hands.

Much appreciated, Jay.

Thanks for hosting this game. It was a fantastic idea, and it served as my own little Championships game. Yes, Soneji, I did care probably way too much, but it was worth it.

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:

Dyslexicon wrote:I really enjoyed the game, and I hope to play with you all again sometime.

You were awesome to host, Dizzy. I really hope we can play in a game together at some point.

The same goes for all of the newcomers who stopped by to get a little practice with us. I really appreciate everyone's participation, and I wish all the champions the best of luck in the tournament. I hope this scrimmage will prove at least a little useful as preparation, despite the differences with the games on MU.

QFT, so much.

I loved getting to know Zexy, Dizzy, Marco, Frog, and Inawordyes. You are a very great group of players, and I'm incredibly appreciative of all of you coming over to play this with us. Hope to play other game(s) with you all.

Was nice to play a game with ika, Silver, and Soneji for the first time too.

And I hope Psi comes back and plays a game for real too; he seemed very nice as well!

Dyslexicon wrote:That "MP has reads on all his null-ISOs" from IAWY makes so much sense now. Oh hindsight.

Yeah.

Not having day chat was incredibly paralyzing and foreign to me, especially at first. I wanted to tell IAWY and ika many things, lol, and I was especially frustrated by ika only going after his teammates, but the WIFOM worked out I suppose. I didn't feel it wasn't an easy game, despite the fact that there were still 3 of us alive at the end. I kept worrying about every single post I made; I tried my absolute best to make sure I was approaching the game as a townie. It was difficult to avoid confirmation bias, no doubt.