The Syndicate

Although, actually, I think my performance of a member of the town (in both roles - since I never realised that I wasn't a member of the town in any scenario after the mafia were dead) was a long way better than my performance as sk. Even though I did correctly identify the last member of mafia and Trump with my kills, I think that this speaks far more to how well I was seeing the game as a townie than to how well I played as a sk.

I would have been disappointed to win MVP. Economics this was not. I voted mm!

Metalmarsh89 wrote:I used PoE in Recruitment Mafia before it was cool.

We are now in the post-cool era. It didn't last long.

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:I think that generally speaking the more complex a game is, the less balanced it is.

This is probably true, but I also think that large complex games have an additional factor, which is that it does not matter how balanced it starts, the number of potential outcomes available make it far more likely to become imbalanced as the game wears on. I've had complex games (like BSG) where the town has come through to a resounding win that I think was possible because of the number of events designed to potentially go either way that went the towns way.

I want to point out I did the exact opposite of 'chastising people for not getting behind them'. I tried to explain the concept, and got a lot of people who chastised me for having it. To which I responded things like the following:

Golden wrote:Btw Rico, I don't think you have to AGREE with this way of thinking about the game

Golden wrote:All I hear your posts saying, rico, is 'I'm a great mafia player the way I am, I refuse to take on board anything that could change my perspective'.

Which is your prerogative, and fine if you want to be that way - Epi will probably call what we are talking about bullshit as well, and you are both great players, so it's certainly a view you can have.

So, while I was very much trying to explain to people the way in which I was playing and make it very clear, and what I found is people were rejecting it outright without even trying to understand it, I was trying very expressly to make it clear that I did not expect others to play that way and that I was trying to explain why I was using it. In response, this was the kind of stuff I was getting...

insertnamehere wrote:So lemme get this straight. You've invented arbitrary reasons why people HAVE to be town. You've also invented arbitrary reasons why they HAVE to be scum. You go through with this method, and start lynching. Unfortunately, you bump off a civilian. Instead of thinking, "Oh gee, maybe my reasoning was incorrect." you double down and try to lynch more people for the same exact reasons.

I guess I'm not the type of person who can gleefully murder one innocent person to save five others, and then pat myself on the back for doing so.

I also think this entire style of gameplay is downright dangerous to civilians. You've essentially built yourself a little echo chamber where you can have a little list of people, and proceed to try and bump every single one of them off, completely indifferent to anything which may prove you wrong, because you have more faith in the system than anything else.

insertnamehere wrote:I disagree that this is good strategy, and I disagree that this is what civilians should listen to and do. I think your goals are misguided and wrong.

insertnamehere wrote:Then again, I believe that the only difference between how 3J/Golden and everyone else plays the game is a combination of apathy towards lynched civilians, complete and utter conviction in reads that will never be doubted for a second, (that last one describes Golden more than 3J) and an air of superiority.

So I very much hope that when you make that comment, you are being honest in your analysis about exactly who was being chastised, and who was doing the chastising, for 'not getting in behind' someone else's playstyle. I never expect others to play the game the way I play it, and if others do see merit in it then that's neat. But I don't expect others to, and I'm certainly not chastising anyone for not. In turn, I hope that people come out of this understanding that the PoE is a legitimate way of playing, and don't chastise me or others for using it.

I had a story I was able to tell inh if he pressed. It was that my role was to swap out a kill on Trump to someone else. I guess it would have been helpful in making me appear to be protecting Trump, although all of his lackeys were town as well...

I should have used that to infer what Trump's role was, but I never did. I always (right back from before I had this role) was thinking there might be some kind of redirect role in play, but I never considered that it was intentional self-defence.

Quin wrote:This was actually probably the worst game I've ever had. I didn't vote a single baddie and town read two of them

Sorry for lynching you and not being sorry, Quin. Btw, I'm always sorry for a mislynch outside of the game. I just have to be honest about how I feel from a game perspective only while inside the game.

Oh, right. So the town was doomed from the moment I chose epi. Well, it would have been very difficult for me to win and the town to win in the same game, then.

If so then ironically, the town could have won if they'd just stuck with sloonei instead of that CFD on to Quin I wasn't around for.

G-Man wrote:Catching up on all the posts. One thing I want to make clear is that Jeb was not compatible with the civvies. Had JJJ been NK'd by Jeb, he would leave the game. If this happens when the mafia is still alive, Jeb gets a win and leaves the game. Then the rest of the civvies still have to eliminate the baddies.

With the mafia gone, a Jeb win means a civvie loss. Jeb either takes Trump out himself or he takes everyone else out to be the LMS. Even if the mafia is eliminated, the civvies need to get rid of Jeb to win.

Let me explain it this way- the civvies were tasked with eliminating all threats to Trump's campaign. They can't win with Jeb because he is a threat to the campaign. I couldn't spell it out for you guys because the closed setup required me to keep killing faction information from you. If that devolved into a grey area, then I guess that's just my fault as the host. It was always civvies-v-mafia-v-sk. Had Trump been lynched, Jeb could have accomplished his mission in the narrative had he made it as LMS.

So, if I had NKed Jay when Sloonei died, I would have won, and then left the game, and with no baddies left, the townies would have automatically won?

Ricochet wrote:If that's the same as "hey Jay what's your five? I can run with that. PoE, everyone!" then kill me now.

I had my PoE before Jay stated his. They happened to align. I don't need to debate what I already agree with. Jay and I were remarkably in sync in this game, while I was town. Others who weren't against the PoE in principle also seemed to have very similar lists.

So, I mean, apologies for not taking your views, or inhs views, so much but I can't easily figure out what to do with opinions that consider the entire approach invalid. I don't think you and I have ever been able to get in to the others head very easily, so it's much harder for me to know what to do with your perspective. You weren't giving anyone a town read at all, so... I don't know what to do with that.

One thing to recognise about the PoE is its a 'for today' thing each time. So you aren't looking for ironclad reasons to remove someone from any possibility of being bad. You are trying to find reasons to see them as more likely town than not and town enough that at least 'they should not be lynched today'.

Nah, epi is epi. I know what I'm going to get from him. I don't believe he gets angry in mafia, and I believe you can always trust that what's in the game is in the game for epi.

I'm glad I'm interpreting it wrong. I've never seen the kind of thing from you where you sort of stopped playing, though, and maybe I interpreted that wrong too, and that frustrated me because it didn't bother me in the slightest if you didn't use or like PoE (as I tried to make clear multiple times), it bothered me much more that you would stop playing because I was using it. It felt like it was because you were mad at me, so I'm glad it's not that. I don't ever want you to stop trying hard on my account, because you are too much of an asset to do that.

Ricochet wrote:And then you started acting like the voice of the nation in regards to the path of light that is the PoE, which was further enraging. Don't grab and wave the banner, just like that, especially if your methods are about as basic as wearing an "I'm with =====>" T-Shirt.

By the way, lets be clear. I think this, not PoE, is at the heart of what's going on here. You got enraged with me, and you spent the rest of the game not really playing because you were mad at me. There was far too much anger going on in this game. Mafia is not a good place for anger.

If you have a problem with me, there are ways to address that.

He posted twice in our thread. One post says 'hello'. The other one says he is starting school tomorrow but will try to be active.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:

Golden wrote:

Metalmarsh89 wrote:

Golden wrote:Also, I did see myself as town win compatible. If I just could have killed Jay, I would have suggested lynching me. The town deserved to win, in my view (and golden 1.0 would have won too, I guess!)

According to the host post, you did assassinate Jay.

But only to be the last man standing.

Never mind, I read the posts out of order.

Curse you and killing your BTSC mate.

I had to - INH would target Jay that night (so Jay would have survived) and in any event I targetted Jay the night before, and couldn't double target.

Ricochet wrote:No, we're talking non-civilian forces. What part of there being a serial killer was "invisible" and "uncommon"?

Unless the setup is open, all roles are invisible. I've never seen someone have 'civilian btsc' with a SK before, so that's very uncommon.

I won this game by getting myself mechanically cleared by inh because he thought he had btsc with a civilian. I mean, really, what is anyone going to do with that? It's not me corrupting a system through my wiles - it's the fact I got a role that no-one could predict.

The further you get from fully closed role madness, the more effective PoE becomes.

Ricochet wrote:Lover role cards usually go both ways.

I think he noticed from the fact we had a btsc thread.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:

Golden wrote:Also, I did see myself as town win compatible. If I just could have killed Jay, I would have suggested lynching me. The town deserved to win, in my view (and golden 1.0 would have won too, I guess!)

According to the host post, you did assassinate Jay.

But only to be the last man standing.

Look, Rico, I'm not here to sell you a bill of goods. The PoE strategy is proven over thousands of games from other mafia cultures, and it worked here perfectly.

I'm not trying to convince you to change your game style, and I doubt I'll play more heist games because they aren't really my jam, so do whatever you want with it.

Also, I did see myself as town win compatible. If I just could have killed Jay, I would have suggested lynching me. The town deserved to win, in my view (and golden 1.0 would have won too, I guess!)

Metalmarsh89 wrote:In hindsight, there was nothing I could have done on Day 5 to change my fate (that I know of).

Well, I was legitimately trying to lynch the person that I thought there was the best case against, and at times I felt that was Jay. It's always easier for me to play these situations if I forget I'm the bad guy and imagine I'm hunting for real. At times, I thought Jay might end up being my vote, but in the end the arguments against him being bad were stronger.

It is inherently corrupted by invisible uncommon power roles to be sure, but the reason I was able to do it was only by forcing mm and Jay into reaching mechanical conclusions that were wrong. As Jay said earlier, it's silly to expect it to be utterly infallible. Where it's benefit lies, is in coming as a town to collective town read conclusions that enable you to narrow the field.

what my power was in this case wasn't important - what is important is not lynching outside of the poe. It's true you might clear baddies, it's not infallible. But what it is, is something that increases town win percentage overall in these types of games.

If I was to put it another way, it would be this... It's about not pursuing a tinfoil read in a situation where you can accept there are good logical reasons for others to read them as town, running with consensus town reads and lynching people who don't have that, even if the suspicion isn't active.

insertnamehere wrote:So 3J getting lynched would have probably resulted in a civ win.

Just something to chew on...

Nah, I had to nightkill him or I went full last man standing.

Btw - I do get why people hate the concept of PoE, don't get me wrong. It seems very callous. And I'd never use it in a big role madness game, it wouldn't translate. It only works in a little heist game where most people are vanilla. so in that sense it really doesn't mesh with our old school STV/RM sensibilities at all.

insertnamehere wrote:Golden, if 3J was lynched Day 3, would you have tried to go after Epi and Rey?

Rey, Wilgy, Epi. Yep. I think I would have pushed for Wilgy first, though, but I might have been in the same position as Jay where MM actually decided who went more than I did. I still would have killed epi too.

I probably would have gone after you at that point too if I hadn't known you were town, but it's hard for me to know for sure.

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:Just back luck, frankly. I was perfectly well onto Golden and only stopped when INH gave him the same treatment he received. That's not to blame INH though, perhaps his protections made him believe he had information somehow, or something else was in play. Shit happens.

Question...

If inh and I never had btsc, and therefore I was not obliged to read him as strong town, do you think you would have been on to me?

insertnamehere wrote:

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:

insertnamehere wrote:I had BTSC with Leetic/Golden and didn't see this coming at all.

Did you have it all game long?

Yep.

I guess I wasn't supposed to believe that part of my role description.

Just shows the perils of PoE to me.

Sorry inh. That was a very rough twist. If it had been the other way around and you were the sk, I would have trusted you completely and you would have won.

Sloonei wrote:At least I got this one right! It was the only way Wilgy 2.0's death made sense.

It was the only way your death made sense too. Jay did very well at never letting on for a second that he understood why these odd deaths were happening.

Lol at rico, epi and inh still moaning about the PoE.

The PoE is why I was able to win. It's why I killed epi (I figured Wilgy would be lynched and one of the two had to be the last mafia).

PoE is going to be much harder to use to find a serial killer, but if Jay was actually killable, it wouldn't matter... the game would have been over and the town would have won with 6 or 7 of us left out of 12. That was the PoE at work.

I figured Jay was Trump from the moment I subbed back in, given I knew Boomslang died in his place. It was confirmed when sloonei died in his place. I believe the rest of the town could have won with me if I just could have killed him! But I couldn't.

Sorry for lynching you MM.

I would really have liked some input from inh, but I guess I won't be around for end of day so I'll miss anything he's got.

Here is what I think after meeting both Jay and MM's requests.

I think you have both said things that you believe to be true. Jay doesn't believe he would take big risks and draw attention to himself when anti-town. MM doesn't believe he would kill epi except when it is necessary.

However, what I see really just confirms my thinking that it's MM. Jay's thing, for me... I don't actually believe it's necessarily true. I think Jay is aware enough of his own game that he would take risks in a role like the serial killer. But I believe that Jay believes it to be true right now, it comes across as very genuine, and Jay could not both believe it to be true and simultaneously actually be the sk and be doing it.

MM also is telling the truth about epi, but what he has more or less made clear is that there are exceptions, and those exceptions are where it is necessary. I could see a situation where MM thought he had either found Trump or believed epi to be the last baddie and believed that removing him was necessary to clear the way for his own win. I also think in the situation where MM feels that it is necessary, he can fall back on his meta and that's something he would know in advance.

Trying to make sense of the kills from MM's perspective - Boomslang and Rico there is really no reason for MM not to kill them. Epi I've dealt with already. That leaves sloonei.

MM killing sloonei doesn't really make sense, but then neither does Jay. It has to be Trump hunting. My theory is that if MM thought that inh and I were not trump, he wanted to leave alive the person that he thought would most likely be willing to lynch either myself or inh ahead of him, and that would be Jay more than sloonei. Not much of a theory, but I don't really have much better from any perspective about sloonei.

So, in the end, I'm happy with my vote where it is. If I've been bamboozled by Jay supatown, well played Jay. But seriously, marmot, you've been supatown too so well played to you, I think you are the one and I wouldn't have caught you if not for PoE. Whichever of you it is, you've played it exceptionally well.

It will be interesting to see where inh's lands, though. I'm not convinced he will necessarily follow me

Metalmarsh89 wrote:I've also made crucial late-day-phase votes in every single lynch thus far, which has led to the lynching of two mafiosa (and every lynched player as a matter of fact).

Why wouldn't you do this when SK?

And your response to the answer 'the win is that you are meeting Jay-meta' is 'No-one practiaclly notices the difference between me doing 250 and 750 posts, so I don't have to do 750 posts, so I don't have to be vocal at a day end'?

What if I asserted that you had to post significantly higher numbers of posts than you might have liked to because of the pressure you were under for much of the game?

Read Boomslang - he agreed with some of Jay's posts. Jay could have had an early town read on him (thus an early candidate for who Trump could be), but also had less reason to want him dead. He didn't interact with marmot at all, so there's nothing there to analyse.

That's me for now, again, but I'll do some more before I decide to go to bed.

Marmot - please tell me if there are any specific things you point to why you are not the SK that you would like me to revisit before making a final decision, thank you.

Jay, I will read day one of you.

I have to be realistic, I can't do everything.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:

Golden wrote:I've just read the last two pages and, as it stands, I find Jay's arguments much more convincing than Marmot's.

I find myself reading them and going 'that makes total sense'. I read marmots and think 'thats what he would have to say if SK'.

Of course you fucking do. Supatown!

Feed my paranoia, marmot!

I've just read the last two pages and, as it stands, I find Jay's arguments much more convincing than Marmot's.

I find myself reading them and going 'that makes total sense'. I read marmots and think 'thats what he would have to say if SK'.

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:

Golden wrote:

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:I have never done that in a non-town role. So you can consider this a significant tip-off. If I am obliterating the post count, I am almost certainly pro-town. If I am merely leading it or among the leaders, there's a better chance I'm anti-town. Use it against me in some future game if you like.

Can you point to where you are an anti-town solo sk faction in another game?

Unfortunately the only example is RYM #26, which isn't something I can link you to anymore. I was similar to a SK, though closer to a demo man. I was an LMS independent though. In that game I think my post count was among the leaders; it definitely wasn't significantly higher than the rest.

Maybe you could say RYM #87 when I was converted by aether into a werewolf. You were there for that one. I was only an independent for one day though and I was doomed from the moment I was converted.

Yeah, I don't count that one.

I was there. I was the bomb. Literally. It might have been your first look at my town instincts.

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:I have never done that in a non-town role. So you can consider this a significant tip-off. If I am obliterating the post count, I am almost certainly pro-town. If I am merely leading it or among the leaders, there's a better chance I'm anti-town. Use it against me in some future game if you like.

Can you point to where you are an anti-town solo sk faction in another game?

Metalmarsh89 wrote:

Golden wrote:Apologies, haven't had time to do much but pop in briefly today, will post thoughts tomorrow.

I thought MM came out of yesterday's lynch looking worst even with Sloonei alive, and MM being bad is what makes most sense to me. But with what time I have tomorrow I want to really consider Jay objectively because I've spent so much game in defense of him that I recognise its possible he could have me suckered.

I look forward to it. This has turned into a dichotomy, and you've put more effort into defending inh than determining your final vote.

To be fair, I think that was important.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:Yellow: I don't know why you're bringing up Sloonei again.

Sloonei is the only player who I know was nightkilled by the SK (and Epignosis I suppose). I know we've hypothesized on the other nights, but I don't recall the conclusion we came to.

Sloonei came up with a pretty good analysis based on which kills were attributed to 'operation cobalt'.

@Jay - will do.

As far as Marmot goes - without a full analysis, I think the rico kill makes sense, I think the sloonei kill doesn't make a lot of sense (one of the bigger points in marmot's favour). The epi and boomslang kills seem meh, perfectly fine either way. Need to look back.

My overall analysis on Jay is... that my biggest hang up, which is the rico/golden kill day, makes a whole lot more sense if all the sk needs to do is kill Trump, which could be the case. It might seem worth the risk, given how strongly Rico was roleplaying. That's a lot of assumptions, but it is at least an explanation that has some logic.

Lots more words! I'll catch up on them soon.

I'm here, and I was really bad in that last meeting because I was so zoned out and I spent it thinking about this:

Boomslang, Ricochet, Epignosis, Sloonei. For who did these choices make the most sense.

Now, I definitely need to read back to make more sense of where MM has been in the grand scheme of things this game. And I don't really recall any reads that Boomslang put out or even Rico, really. So all I've really got so far is the pros and cons of the kills from Jay's perspective (whose game I've been relatively focussed on). So here goes.

Boomslang

Against Jay - Taking out the PoE quickly and efficiently would theoretically minimise the number of kills that the mafia got. If hunting specifically for Trump, day one is a shot in the dark anyway.
For Jay - Lynching the PoE, in theory, means more time before people go SK hunting.

Ricochet

Against Jay - Ricochet seems an obvious candidate for being Trump no matter what other factors are in play. In this light, the kill might make sense for Jay (especially if killing Trump is the win con and not survival).
For Jay - This kill could have cost Jay his life in the game. Incredibly risky, and the kill or Rico plus me 1.0 in this phase left Jay very vulnerable. The Rico kill seems like the biggest point in Jay's favour.

Epignosis

Against Jay - Epi spent most of the game seeing Jay as bad. Although Jay talked about the fact Epi had started to see him as good, I don't think Jay would rely on Epi to be necessarily be truthful about that or have enough of a belief in that to not vote for him in the event that the other wagon wasn't someone he believed was bad. Epi was relatively consistently townread, so could have seemed like a good candidate for Trump.
For Jay - Jay had begun to express doubts about Epi being good, so perhaps not Jay's first choice for who Trump would be at that time.

Sloonei

Against Jay - Jay seems more likely to believe that inh or I were lynchable today than MM did. Jay also seemed to town read sloonei. Sloonei can also read Jay relatively well. In addition, I doubt Jay would have been in a hurry to NK me in the circumstances.
For Jay - Don't really have one on the sloonei kill.

For each of you - why would the other kill sloonei?

Metalmarsh89 wrote:I don't know what else to say tbh, especially if inh and Golden aren't around to react.

Sorry. But I will read whatever it is. I'm expecting to have a window of time in 90 minutes.

Gah! I get to work and my day is full of meetings again. It sucks that life is so busy at the end of this game.

I haven't read the recent discussions yet nor have I looked back on Jay and MM across the game generally, both of which I want to do before the end of tonight. I'll do my best. I can only do what I can do

Apologies, haven't had time to do much but pop in briefly today, will post thoughts tomorrow.

I thought MM came out of yesterday's lynch looking worst even with Sloonei alive, and MM being bad is what makes most sense to me. But with what time I have tomorrow I want to really consider Jay objectively because I've spent so much game in defense of him that I recognise its possible he could have me suckered.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:

Golden wrote:Maybe you should go back and read inh day one again, then.

Based on what I've said, am I doing it correctly?

Possibly. Assuming I'm looking at the right things.

Anything more beyond what I've done would probably break the rules. I'm relying on you to try, if you can't get it I can't help and that's ok... I'm doing my best.

There is a difference between being helpful and 'helping you understand the game', too.

By the way, I think survivalist and helpful can happen side by side.

You just didn't grow up with STV/RM sensibilities the way I did and maybe it makes it harder for you to see what I mean.

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:

Golden wrote:Maybe you should go back and read inh day one again, then.

I agree that for certain stretches of this game, his play could be described as more about survival than solving. That was a part of my own rationale when I was calling him a serial killer. I'm just trying to understand why that = town.

You are looking at what I'm trying to express all wrong. I didn't mean to say he was unhelpful on day one. I do think, however, you ascribe intentions to his posts in this game without considering the 'survivalist', explanation, in the past, and you'd do well to look at his posts again through the lens of survival.

I don't know how to help any more than I can. Maybe you'll have a lightbulb moment, maybe you won't, but I don't think I can do anything more to help you. It's best we move on.

Jay, why is MM not the serial killer?
MM, why is Jay not the serial killer?