The Syndicate

Well, I have to go to work, I'm not entirely caught up yet, but I must vote. My vote has gone again to Llama, because I think he was deliberately twisting boo's arguments to show an inconsistency that was not that relevant. I think each player has the right to cast their vote how they want, if boo wants to give more time to Snowman, then he has at least clearly laid out the reasons why. Also, I voted him yesterday, so I must have seen something then, too.

Good luck, lynch!

Epignosis wrote:

Long Con wrote:

Epignosis wrote:BTSC or not, guilty people are still guilty and that affects their mentalities. I look for discrepancies in tone and behavior- minor things that do or do not match the impressions I have of the individual.

So you're going with a very subjective approach here, starting with the assumption that the players you analyze truly conform to your impressions of them.

It's what I've got to work with. If you want objective, we could all role claim and lynch the matches.

Sounds good. I am a detective, are you?

Epignosis wrote:I have no info on anyone. My comment yesterday had an entirely different meaning, and in retrospect, may have been born out of a misreading of something someone else said.

Suuure, I read you loud and clear.

Epignosis wrote:BTSC or not, guilty people are still guilty and that affects their mentalities. I look for discrepancies in tone and behavior- minor things that do or do not match the impressions I have of the individual.

So you're going with a very subjective approach here, starting with the assumption that the players you analyze truly conform to your impressions of them.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:

Long Con wrote:So if people are mostly individuals, their biggest motivation is going to be personal survival. A Detective, trying to survive long enough to somehow catch a Kira, will want to be really careful about what he says, so as not to attract too much suspicion... unless he wants to try and be extra-outspoken, to both attract suspicion AND seem like a useful player to have around. Wait, no, I just described how a baddie would probably want to play. See?

After talking this out with myself, I find myself on boo's side of lynching low-posters... at least until some game elements coalesce into something more tangible. Hoping that will happen. Also, I tend to agree with his other points about low posters. I don't think it's an acceptable tactic to specifically not post so as to make it to a later part of the game, knowing that people won't vote for them.

But, but, you just said that the quiet players sitting and watching could be detectives, yet you agree with boo and want to lynch them?

I said the quiet ones could be detectives, or the outspoken ones could be... and that the baddies would probably play the same way.

Epignosis wrote:My suspects right NOW:

FZ. still number 1

boo is number 2

Snowman is now number 3

(Russ, I don't think can be lynched so let's ignore him)

I will likely vote one of these. But I would like to hear from others, so I will bow out of the discussion unless you have anything to ask me directly.

What is it about these people that makes you think they have baddie motivations? I ask from the point of view that I put forth earlier, that the lack of baddie BTSC and team-knowledge changes how we can form suspicions as compared to a standard Mafia game. Are your suspicions coming from a 'standard' place? How have you changed the way you look for baddies in this very different game?

Epignosis wrote:

Elohcin wrote:I can never tell when you are joking and when you aren't llama.

Epi, that cute girl wouldn't have you baby. I'm saving your dignity.

I know where the grammatical side comes from around here.

I can never tell when he's not Llama either. Is he Llama right now? If he's joking, he is Llama, I think. Also,I can't believe that bitch at work won't even have your baby. Some people.

Epignosis wrote:I refuse to out other players even if my refusal to do so leads to others voting for me.

What do you mean, when did outing another player come up?

Never mind:

S~V~S wrote:OK, Epi. You just go ahead and don't say anything about something no one asked you to talk about anyhow.

That covers it, and you weren't explaining anyway.

Outing someone doesn't necessarily mean BTSC. Is there some sort of 'checker' role? Epig could have info on someone, and is choosing not to out them directly. But him saying what he did there has led me to that conclusion, so maybe he DID infodrop by saying it? Maybe he rolechecked boo last night and found him to be a baddie. If that's true, can I even vote for boo in good conscience? Epig will surely deny any of this, but will I believe him? Maybe he won't deny or confirm because it's already so sticky. Maybe he will ignore this entirely. Maybe just an emoticon. Yes, I imagine that's how it will go. And I will judge his response based on the emoticon he uses, and how I interpret that emoticon's intentions.

bea wrote:Still keeping my eye on you though. You know how I feel about you.

I know.

So there's going to be Death Notes going around. Has anybody gotten a Death Note yet? I was thinking maybe they go out randomly, with an imperative to give it to someone the next Night maybe? Maybe that would be infodropping (HOST, can you comment?) but it's such a big thing in this game, does anybody know anything at this point? I think having possession of a Death Note after a night with no kills would be very incriminating... quite the opposite, really.

And as I read over that post, I can just see somebody accusing me of being a Shingami and having to find the Death Note on someone, or something like that. So maybe it's best not to speak up if you have one, in case it helps them get it and start killing. I don't know.

Linki: I expect no less, Llama, and I would also hold myself to a higher standard were I confronted with something of that nature.

boo, I agree that the groundwork for a bandwagon is there. I also dislike taking out newer players too early, because more players = a healthy Mafia site, and a healthy site is one of the most important things to me here. I want as many players as possible, I remember in MAfia on LP, we'd have 40 player games that were full up in a day, with people in the wrong time zone complaining about missing signups! That's what I want to see here.

Is there a vote-forcer in the roles? I don't think TH and Llama are forced-votes.

Still lots of time to vote, and no bandwagon set in stone at this point. There have been others talked about for suspicious behaviour.

bea wrote:lol - I was going to start today by saying LC fit that "people you expect to be more vocal but could be hiding in the wings for nefarious reasons." I went back and re-read his posts though and they do feel like they are trying to contribute while falling behind in the thread. IDK yet with him, but the thought has crossed my mind.

That is accurate. My posting frequency shouldn't be read as giving clues to my alignment. And I don't fancy myself the type of player that tries to lay low as a baddie anyways. Like DH, I easily get sucked into large-scale posting confrontations, because that's when Mafia is most fun. Not only has it been difficult to keep up due to just being busy, I'm also a bit more tentative to form opinions due to the reasons I put forth recently... this game makes it a lot harder to get a hold on a baddie because almost everyone is motivated only by self-interest, with no potential teammates to link to.

I think people generally put too much stock in the idea of someone newer being "coached" in the thread. In my experience, it rarely happens. To suggest that Snowman is NOT in BTSC because of the lack of coaching on "bandwagon" is not something I would ever consider a reasonable assumption. Even if he had BTSC, I doubt that he would run everything he says through the chat before he posts it.

boo wrote:Your silence (for you), makes me consider the same thing LC. :P The fact that it's both you and BR just adds to it or makes me think you guys are just busy right now. But neither of you have actually played that card. I wonder if lynching one of you would draw the other out more?

Take her! Take her! I'll post more!

boo wrote:

Ricochet wrote:I'm curious to hear as to why Snowman's experience level would change the tone, content, meaning and whatever else of his posts here. I'm genuinely open to counter-arguments - not least from Snowman himself, of course - especially given that I'm new myself (but at the same time I see myself as giving my equal best in all my games so far ). What Epignosis pointed out, I think, was that he was quite the active and astute newbie to being with, compared to which his style here can indeed be less involved, but it can equally be a choice or tactic put into execution. Not to mention that another player in equal status with him - Zomberella - was almost voted by a more experienced player on her first day, plus is on several other players top lists for her D1 behaviour.

BTSC, if he's only played when he's had it, that for me pretty much entirely explains why he would be more withdrawn.

Outside of that, it's the "I'm happy to see so many involved, but how do you find so much to talk about when literally nothing has happened yet? The most earth-shattering event so far is the realization that Russ hasn't posted anything." line from him that people seem so up in arms about. That doesn't read baddie to me, that reads like a genuine question from someone who isn't really sure how to go about finding every little thing someone says suspicious and able to discuss in that way.

Then the bandwagon comment? There are veteran players who say (and honestly mean it) stuff like that and take less flak for it. There are plenty of players who don't say it but who it's obviously true of who take less flak for it. It is the kind of honesty Snowman should probably learn to keep in check, because nobody likes it even if we all know there are people who decide pretty much every D1 vote in the same way, but it isn't the kind of honesty I look at and see a baddie blunder.

I'm also not even sure he understands what we mean when we use the term bandwagon, because when llama called him out on it (asking "Waiting for a bandwagon to hop onto?"), his response was, "If the right wagon comes along, sure! has your wagon already been through all nine pages that follow his post?"). That just makes me think he thinks a bandwagon is any suspicion he agrees with and decides to vote on, not a suspicion he's ambivalent about but doesn't care enough to really think through where to place his vote.

So... would I like to see more from Snowman? Yes. But even if he wasn't a new player I would find the arguments for lynching him to be some serious grasping at straws. As it is... I have to question the motivation of people who want to lynch him, because I think many of them are the ones looking to bandwagon.

and there's a bunch of linki

This guy makes me agree so much that I'm starting to suspect it's a baddie ploy!

A lot of players right now don't even have "motives". Even the two baddie teams (or the baddie team and the independent team?) don't really have a clear goal... the red team has to eliminate detectives, but they all want to appear to the thread as detectives, so it's very easy for a red team member to go hard with a case against another red, thinking they're getting a detective, wanting the thread to think they're going after a baddie, and really having no idea what the reality actually is.

For all we know, the best case-makers are all red, and they will be awesomely convincing and get us to lynch their teammates, while the Civvies sit back and lay low while it happens. It could be! That's so backwards! Maybe you want to accuse me of some sort of manipulation by suggesting that, but even if I were red, how would I know?

I just looked back at the roles to see if I missed anything and another thing that is a major part of the game is the receiving of Death Notes... a major part of the game that we cannot use for anything because we don't know what the deal is, how they get received, when this happens, if there's an element of chance or skill to get them...

So if people are mostly individuals, their biggest motivation is going to be personal survival. A Detective, trying to survive long enough to somehow catch a Kira, will want to be really careful about what he says, so as not to attract too much suspicion... unless he wants to try and be extra-outspoken, to both attract suspicion AND seem like a useful player to have around. Wait, no, I just described how a baddie would probably want to play. See?

After talking this out with myself, I find myself on boo's side of lynching low-posters... at least until some game elements coalesce into something more tangible. Hoping that will happen. Also, I tend to agree with his other points about low posters. I don't think it's an acceptable tactic to specifically not post so as to make it to a later part of the game, knowing that people won't vote for them.

Then again, I'm pretty sure I'M a low poster in this game, so there's that as well. I don't want to be lynched.

If you read all my thoughts here, and you have a different opinion on how to get a more solid handle on this game, then I'm all ears. There must be something more we can use, and it's not currently what we'd use in a regular Mafia game, where baddies have BTSC.

Hey, it's Mr Low-Poster-Under-The-Radar Long Con, here to post something. I cannot deny that I haven't given everyone much of anything to use to read me. My posts are few, but I have tried to analyze what I could in them. I don't even know what I'm going to post here, a lot of suspicions sound like they're pretty good, but then someone comes in with a counterpoint and I'm not so sure anymore. Like Snowman. That oft-quoted line about suspicions coalescing seems like a really good basis for a suspicion, and some of his posts could be seen as bad. Then someone recently mentioned that it's only his second game, and his first game was Donner Party, which was as far from a regular game of Mafia as I have seen.

With an experienced player, I would be all over the earlier suspicious comments, but a brand new player... in a game like this where conversation has been so plentiful?

One of the severe limiting factors in this game is that the baddies don't, for the most part, have any BTSC or any idea who each other are. That takes away the leads that come from baddies distancing from or defending teammates. The baddies are mostly in the dark, like Civvies usually are. So that's a LOT of potential case-making that simply can't happen. I'll post now, and start writing a post again to try and analyze some stuff.

FZ. wrote: You people have a really weird way of baddie hunting.

What do you mean, "you people"?

thellama73 wrote:

Long Con wrote:

thellama73 wrote:Frankly, I think a baddie Epi would have made a better case than the one he made on Russ, which I thought was pretty weak. There is no shortage of good cases to be made, and he is good at making them and pursuing them aggressively. Why would he make such an obviously weak case if he were bad? It doesn't seem like him.

Why would he make such an obviously weak case if he were Civ?

Epi's motivations are his own, but my suspicion is that he never really believed it to begin with. Like SVS said, it might be one of his famous traps.

Do any of these so-called "famous traps" ever get results?

thellama73 wrote:Frankly, I think a baddie Epi would have made a better case than the one he made on Russ, which I thought was pretty weak. There is no shortage of good cases to be made, and he is good at making them and pursuing them aggressively. Why would he make such an obviously weak case if he were bad? It doesn't seem like him.

Why would he make such an obviously weak case if he were Civ?

thellama73 wrote:

Long Con wrote:

S~V~S wrote:I think these all are linked into one big point, really, except the first one with which I disagree. They are standard issue Epi, "I am a Sooper Genius" mind games, imo. Does it make him bad, though? Possible. But whereas this chain of events would pretty much indict someone else, it is SOP for Epi.

I don't like it at all. No one has a license to act so sketchy. Epig is on my baddie list now. I don't care if your name is Epignosis or Snuffleupagus, if we just look the other way when suspicious behaviour happens, then we make it a cake walk that player when they are bad.

Although I don't think Epi is Kira, that is a pretty good point.

It takes me back to Jason Maher on LP, self-voting every single Day 1 vote. It's a cross-game shielding mechanism of "oh, he's always like that".

Why don't you think Epig is Kira?

S~V~S wrote:I think these all are linked into one big point, really, except the first one with which I disagree. They are standard issue Epi, "I am a Sooper Genius" mind games, imo. Does it make him bad, though? Possible. But whereas this chain of events would pretty much indict someone else, it is SOP for Epi.

I don't like it at all. No one has a license to act so sketchy. Epig is on my baddie list now. I don't care if your name is Epignosis or Snuffleupagus, if we just look the other way when suspicious behaviour happens, then we make it a cake walk that player when they are bad.

RIP Trice and all. I'm happy to be caught up. Less posting at night, I bet.

Ok, more now.

The Spacedaisy thing, I don't think it's suspicious that she was in the thread but not posting. This has been a big catch-up game and I'm sure that she had to do some reading without posting - I know that has been most of my game so far.

TH - Llama... Llama claims that TH's indecisiveness in the Day 0 Poll makes him bad, but I think it makes him seem Civ. I could vote for Llama.

birdwithteeth11 wrote:

thellama73 wrote:

Snowman wrote:Thank you Zomberella and SVS. I have no idea if either of you are bad or not, but you boiled down your take on all the players in one post, and I appreciate it. I frankly don't have the time to comb through a couple hundred episodes of "Trice Yells at Everyone" every day. I'll offer my insight and contribute what I can, but I don't see the "discussion" coalescing around anyone in particular. All I see is argument ad nauseum around the D0 poll.

I'm happy to see so many involved, but how do you find so much to talk about when literally nothing has happened yet? The most earth-shattering event so far is the realization that Russ hasn't posted anything.

Waiting for a bandwagon to hop onto?

Hmmm...good point.

Alright. I can probably add TH and Snowman to my list, albeit I would still rank them below Trice and bass. So my list currently goes:

1) Trice
2) bass
3) TH/Snowman

I think this BWT is a bit suspicious, because it's mostly following other cases. And he just adds TH and Snow in one lump, like "here's the portion of my suspicion that is Llama's suspicion".

Isn't Epig anti-speculation? And now he has voted for Russ with a very speculative reason? Maybe Russ has posted sicne then and it's all moot, I don't know yet. Epig, I assume your speculation crumbles if he posts, and you will not believe in your vote any longer?

triceratopzeuhl wrote:

Turnip Head wrote:We must continue to observe his behavior until there can be no doubt.

That's a little weird.

I thought it was sensible.

thellama73 wrote:

triceratopzeuhl wrote:

Turnip Head wrote:We must continue to observe his behavior until there can be no doubt.

That's a little weird.

I know, right? Since when do we only lynch people when we have no doubt about them, especially on Day 1?

Ping! I think I'll vote for Llama today.

Ok, for the last few days, I have only been able to come in and read a few pages at a time, not able to fully catch up because of all the conversation. I'm starting this post while still not caught up, but it occurred to me that I should get thoughts down.

The Normal vs L/Light vote has taken up a lot of the conversation thus far, so I should start by talking about that a little. I voted for the L/Light option, because I thought it would be cool, and I was optimistic that L could work it into Civvie advantage. There is an angle that I have not seen discussed on this front, so I'm bringing it up. I know the Normal option has already won, so this is moot now anyway.

I feel like people were focusing on whether L and Light picked Civvies or baddies with their vote-weighting choices, when in my mind, the trick was for L to pick people who are good at finding baddies, and for Light to pick people who are bad at finding baddies. It's about confidence in the players' case-making ability and detective work, because even baddies want to lynch baddies - they want their cases to give them cred. Looking at whether baddies or Civvies have more vote-influence is one thing, but it's not the only thing. Especially when L and Light mostly have no idea who the baddies and Civvies are. Anyways, Normal won and now a lot of the discussion is about that.

The original thing was DH and Epig arguing about the best option, with some satellite opinions coming in after those two started at it. I've only read it once, but I feel like a lot of the Normal voters decided on Normal after Epig made a big case for it. Staunch supporters of his infallible opinion. It occurs to me as I write this that perhaps some baddies latched on to that because they could see how one could make the case that L/Light voters are bad.

The other thing that stands out to me is Aces/Trice. It's like the other big discussion. I find it more interesting than the DH/Epig one, especially with Aces' big case on Trice. I really like the angle of thinking like a baddie, and looking for patterns of behaviour that, while not overtly suspicious, conform with what I think a baddie would do. Also, it's good to see an active Aces, because the last several games I have played with him, I recall a near-absenteeism from him. Aces, will you keep this up? Will you bring that Aces to the next game I host? I don't think there's a big case against Aces, but there sure is one against Trice now.

This goes against the theory from S~V~S that baddies would be more tentative in this game because they don't want to lynch a teammate they don't know yet. Trice doesn't fall into that category at all. Could be a distanced defense of Trice by S~V~S, now that I think about it, but that's too weak to pursue at this time.

I also feel like Trice has been unfairly accused for some of the things... you make a lot of posts, and people can find something to twist in them. What I'm thinking about specifically here is when Trice said "If that's the best case you can make, then you're not going to lynch a Civ like you want to." Someone was saying that would likely be interpreted as "Trice isn't Civ", I think... but that is a long shot, I don't believe that's going to happen. Who thinks that's a slip? I don't.

On the other hand, it's a huge "no u". Maybe even a slightly preemptive one, as I seem to recall from Aces' case that he said Trice was being baddie-paranoid... and that statement of 'no-u'-ness really fits the bill. That's a very strong statement from Trice that he thinks Aces is a baddie. Has Trice voted for Aces yet? I haven't looked at votes yet.

http://www.mafiathesyndicate.com/viewto ... 97#p115297

I'm at that post now in my catch-up. I'll talk more when I'm up-to-date, assuming that ever happens with this superverbose thread.

There's more to analyzing a lynch than see whose vote counted. Everyone's vote is only the final confirmation of the real meat of the game, which is the discussion for each lynch.

Maybe Epig is on the yellow team and is afraid his team is getting ripped off.

Can someone explain exactly what a Shinigami is? I think it's a supernatural entity of some kind.. a guardian? They have Death Notes? And Kira stole one from a Shinigami, or found a lost one, or something?

DharmaHelper wrote:

thellama73 wrote:I can see both sides of it. I'm happy with my vote, but won't be disappointed if normal lynch wins either.

Ultimately I understand if a normal lynch wins out, But I'm very hopeful that it doesn't. Every bit of me wants this game to be challenging and unique and fun and I'm literally electric with excitement at the idea of that L/Light mechanic.

As I was reading through, I was glad to see this post, because I feel the same way and I thought maybe Normal would win out. I plan to vote this way, but I need to do a more complete reading of roles first, so I'm fully informed.