The Syndicate

I think that's a deserved recognition. I hope you don't take it the wrong way Golden, because you also played well and would have been deserving. I think this is one of those scenarios where the person who played the best Mafia might not have been in the winning faction. Marmot had a hell of a town game and I'm glad it was noticed.

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

Epignosis wrote:Civilians win more in my games than mafia do.

You've hosted a million games obviously, and I know balance is something you pay a lot of attention to in that role.

It's probably not coincidental that the two people who utilized PoE in this game the most frequently are the ones who experienced dominating town wins in Thingyman's tournaments. My season 2 qualifier game was won going away with that strategy at the forefront, and it's something that stuck with me after that. Both of Golden's season 3 games were similar, and it's obvious that it has stuck with him too.

Maybe it's something folks have to see work. I dunno.

There are a thousand ways to play Mafia.

I think the main reason I usually prefer simpler games is that I can be more confident that they're balanced. I tend to play Mafia so dang hard that it's ideal to feel like it's worthwhile, and that all that effort has at least a decent chance of helping my team win the game.

I think that generally speaking the more complex a game is, the less balanced it is. There are exceptions of course. I think complexity tends to work against town though and in role madness games (open or closed setups) I always have less faith that what I am doing really matters that much.

I also probably just have a general preference for the core investigation/deception concept of Mafia over games more reliant upon night actions and such. To each their own.

Somehow I always seem to end up drawing the role that never dies.

Talking Heads, can't be night killed.
Turf Wars, would never be targeted anyway.
2015 GOC, immune to first night kill/lynch.
Red vs. Blue, other townies take bullets for me.

Thanks for the game G-Man. I always appreciate such a big effort in narration and flavor.

Rico, you and Marmot won Talking Heads with me by cooperatively using process of elimination to arrive at Diiny and Russ at the end.

Hell, without PoE we would have probably lost this game to reywaS instead.

It's not 0% in any subforum either.

And the strategy is not at 0% on The Syndicate. It's been used a ton, just not under the term "PoE".

Yes, it is possible for a PoE to be corrupted by a bad guy. Nobody denied that.

Until I am shown a single town strategy that isn't susceptible to making a bad read, I don't care. Nothing is perfect. If people don't prefer the strategy, that's fine. To dismiss the strategy entirely and beg to be nightkilled because other people are using it is something else.

There was no way for me to know that my being killed would allow for a combined win. It's a bastard game in that regard because it meantthat I was harming my own win chance just by using my role. I'd have never used it on Night 4 if I'd known. I used it because it stood a chance of eliminating a suspect (it did with Sloonei).

Town didn't lose this game because of "PoE". INH was never going to realize his game-long BTSC partner was not on his team. There's nothing he can do about that, and the game effect was evident.

This is not to gripe about the setup. It made for a fun twist and that suits the narrative. It's not to take away from Golden either. I'd definitely prefer he win in that role than a guy with 3 posts. Usually when town loses though I feel it's the result of a town failure. This time I don't. Just the way it goes.

I wonder how many times people tried to kill me.

I don't blame INH at all if he was in BTSC with leetic/Golden. I think there are certain things that a townie shouldn't be expected to figure out, and that's one of them.

No slight on G-Man and no detraction on Golden's play. It's philosophy. It was obviously a fun game and it maintained a level of intensity from start to finish.

Ricochet wrote:

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:Frankly anyone who continues to crap on the concept of process of elimination is absolutely clueless.

Winless, too.

I can't even count the number of wins I have piled up doing it.

Frankly anyone who continues to crap on the concept of process of elimination is absolutely clueless.

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

Did you have it all game long?

Hopefully Trump's fate in this game will be reflected in the real election. Well, not assassination, but a loss.

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.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:Sorry Jay, this one's on me.

No it isn't. This didn't have to happen.

Good game Golden.

INH is about to have some 'splaining to do. Y'all are baffling.

Right, now how about the next host post.

At least you had the pleasure of being thoroughly licked.

I may be on octopus, but it's the innocent and noble kind.

Y'all have made the right choice.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:

Golden wrote:

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?

I probably would to an extent. I generally make useful votes, and would try to match that meta as a SK. But as a SK, I wouldn't have the urgency to do so.

On Day 1 you voted last in an interaction directly with me. I pushed you to vote for INH, and you refused me. You refused me while simultaneously casting shade on me.

On Day 2 you were present late, and given the suspicions faced by other people already -- voting off-wagons is not a way to play it safe. It gets people into trouble. You consciously avoided doing that.

On Day 3 you were the first on your own wagon, and you knew I'd follow it.

On Day 4, the order of voting is irrelevant because only a SK remained and both of the main wagons were on townies.

Golden wrote: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?

That accounts for a lot of my posts, sure. Remove all of them and I am still obliterating the post count ranks.

Golden wrote:Jay, I will read day one of you.

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

If it helps, I'll lay out my own argument. You can consider it as you read that stretch to best understand what I am trying to convey.

I joined Sloonei in a CFD attempt against INH at the very end of Day 1, and I loudly pursued the votes of other players to get that bandwagon into lynch range. If I am a serial killer, this decision serves me no meaningful benefit but leaves me with numerous disadvantages depending upon the results:

1.) If the CFD on INH is successful and he gets lynched and flips TOWN, I look like a doofus and my chance of being lynched increases.

2.) If the CFD on INH is successful and he gets lynched and flips SCUM, I look like a hero and my chance of being night killed by the mafia increases.

3.) If the CFD on INH fails and Scotty flips TOWN, it is a lateral move which nets me no meaningful benefit or disadvantage.

4.) If the CFD on INH fails and Scotty flips SCUM (reality), I look like a megadoofus and my chance of being lynched significantly increases.

The only option here that isn't objectively bad is #3, and as a SK I have no way of knowing whether that will be the reality. To take a chance on that late CFD based upon this sole possibility is a terrible strategic decision that I would not make as a serial killer. #4 is the one that ended up happening, and the results are visible. I led the tally late on Day 2, and was only kept alive by the Quin 1.0 wagon. I was tied for the tally lead at the end of Day 3, and was only kept alive because G-Man's coin flip was friendly to me.

These are positions I don't have to put myself in. It's lose-lose-null-lose.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:Tell me Jay, why would I pick a game where I roll an SK role to actually work my ass off for the civilian cause?

Metalmarsh89 wrote:Certified WIFOM Bucket Metalmarsh laid an egg in his most recent game and hopes to have a stronger performance this time around.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:I tried so hard. I did everything as well as I could. Yet here I am, getting lynched, because I just can't do it well enough.

Marmot pulling at the heartstrings.

You have played a magnificent serial killer game man, seriously. You've made yourself a candidate to repeat with the Best Indy socky. Winning in that role is not easy at all, and your effort has been splendid. I respect that.

To be exceedingly clear, if I am in civilian BTSC with someone else and another person correctly guesses that in the thread under the same circumstances -- I don't deny it. I probably don't talk about it at all. I just leave it there. INH approaches the game differently, and that's fine.

But I can't know exactly what he's doing.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:I don't know why this post is important to you. It is WIFOM, and inh would deny it whether it's true or not.

It's important to me because I don't have the answers. If I am trying to decide whether INH and Golden have BTSC, and one of them abjectly denies it -- you bet that's relevant to my thought process. And now it's become evident to me that it reflects a difference between INH's Mafia style and my own -- which is something Golden was trying to tell me I am pretty sure. He was concerned with avoiding night kills, but I had no way of knowing that with certainty. I had to consider all the possibilities.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:That's exactly what I said. I made a judgment based on what I saw. That information was crucial to my read and my mindset going into Day 5.

That's what you can claim, but it doesn't show. There's insufficient evidence in your posts that it was something you were really thinking about in any serious capacity. The evidence that I was thinking about it is all over my posts.

Here's the problem in a nutshell, Marmot. This post exists.

insertnamehere wrote:

Golden wrote:INH 'something does not have to give'. You can feel free to vote for 3J but you won't convince me to join you. I'm not going to expend effort convincing you that you are wrong.

Yup, this sure is the model of a civilian BTSC partnership, 3J.

Good read.

A townie cannot know conclusively what INH's motive for posting this is. He has to try to discern that motive. He has to decide what that means about Golden too.

A serial killer knows INH and Golden are town already so it's moot.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:I don't know how you could come to that conclusion correctly as a civilian. They trust each other. There is likelihood of information. It is unfathomable that one of them is the real SK as a result.

A SK is unlikely to rely on thread evidence because he doesn't need it. You did not rely on it coming into this day phase because you didn't need it to know that they were civilian.

This post says it all, Marmot. It's completely backwards.

You're saying a townie shouldn't have a reason to suspect one of them of being a serial killer. You're creating the image that the Golden/INH interaction was so undeniable and obvious that an uninformed townie would have no reason to suspect either of them at all. That's not how being town works. A townie doesn't know anything, and he has to make judgments based upon what he sees -- and he has to pursue clarification and expansion. That's why I continually asked Golden and INH about each other, and why I continually posed theories about their relationship. I was working it out the only way I could.

The mindset you're attributing to a hypothetical townie only makes sense for a player with information external to the thread -- in this case a serial killer.

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.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:One does not "forget" one of the most basic concepts in Mafia. A serial killer knows that other people aren't serial killers.

I remember the things that are directly related to my role, not other people's.

That's kind of the point.

MM knows MM is the serial killer.

"Are Golden or INH a serial killer?" is never a sincere thing in your brain.

Golden and INH look like they might have BTSC.

They probably do.

Whereas for Mr. Townie:

Golden and INH look like they might have BTSC.

I'm not sure though, and I am concerned about this possible angle Golden might be pursuing...

*tinfoil*

Metalmarsh89 wrote:Well I kinda have too. There aren't really any "great" arguments to be made against you, so I have to make do.

I know there aren't. I'm not a serial killer.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:I guess I've forgotten the fact that yes, a SK that is living with no mafia around will know who all the civilians are. The conclusion I pointed out to you is one I came to. An SK wouldn't need that thread information to come to that conclusion though. A townie would.

One does not "forget" one of the most basic concepts in Mafia. A serial killer knows that other people aren't serial killers.

You didn't "need" thread evidence. You talked about it very briefly, immediately after I presented my own theory, and never really paid any serious attention to the matter. You knew they were townies already.

Do you have questions about anything, INH?

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.

I know that. What I mean is that you crammed the Sloonei argument into an argument about something else. You keep forcing Sloonei against me as if it's not applicable to yourself in all the same ways.

Do you maintain that a serial killer has no informational advantage in judging Golden and INH over a townie?

Golden wrote: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.

"Trump" is the only explanation that makes sense for Sloonei too, and it doesn't have to apply to me more than anyone else. If that's what the serial killer is after, then it's what the serial killer is after.

Again, I encourage you to review the end of Day 1 again. That makes no sense for a serial killer JJJ. Please make that a priority point of focus.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:A townie can come to that conclusion as well, and here's how.

3 mafia are dead. There is (as of Day 4) only 1 baddie of any kind left or this game is rigged. insertnamehere could be lying, but Golden had given me reasonable belief that he was not. Golden could be lying, but then inh would have made two senseless posts in the thread defending a player that he never talked about again for no reason. And his behavior when Golden came back speaks to it being true.

That's evidence of a relationship. It isn't conclusive enough to make it obvious. To know the answer based on that implies one of these realities exists:

1. The person who knows is the serial killer.

2. The person who knows is so keenly familiar with the way INH behaves to the point that he could judge conclusively without a doubt what he is doing and why without the need for exploring more closely.

#2 is not a thing. A townie cannot come to that conclusion. A townie can consider the notion, but he cannot know -- not when INH abjectly rejected the assertion of BTSC.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:Golden and inh cannot both be lying, that would be preposterous. That would mean they are both bad (in which case the game should be over?), one is bad and one made a bad judgment call, or they both mad bad choices.. It is more likely in my eyes that you are the SK and killed Sloonei than it is that one of them did.

I agree they're not both bad. I already talked about that. A townie wonders about one or the other. My concern was with Golden, and I expressed that concern in clear terms. It was resolved when INH offered his clarification, and that's all a townie can do. You cannot deny that the SK advantage exists in this context, it's ludicrous.

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

Metalmarsh89 wrote:What advantage did I have? If I am the SK, how do I have any advantage on thread-based evidence that you don't?

You don't need thread-based evidence that I don't have. You only need the same evidence that I have at my disposal. Here's how it works:

1.) Both the serial killer and the townie observe evidence in the thread that Golden and INH might be in some sort of mutually or singularly informed civilian relationship.

2.) The townie is forced to judge whether that evidence should be taken at face value or investigated for ulterior motives, because one can never be sure if there's an agenda behind those sorts of public clues.

3.) The serial killer is inherently immune to the uncertainty that the townie is experiencing in #2. He knows immediately that both Golden and INH are townies, and thus he is able to judge their relationship purely as it is. The paranoia never exists.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:I said that your chances are reduced by half, not that you don't have to be concerned with them.

You told me that I would have been unbothered by night kills playing within the "meta" you painted for me because one of them would have belonged to me. It's what you said.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:Soooo, why haven't you been lynched or nightkilled yet?

Horrendous.

I wasn't lynched on Day 2 because Golden 1.0 defended the hell out of me and because there was significant suspicion of Quin 1.0 too. I wasn't lynched on Day 3 because of a coin flip.

I have no idea why I haven't been killed. Obviously Epignosis and the mafia wouldn't have killed me since I was their whipping boy. You probably didn't kill me because you don't think I'm Trump. You tell me.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:That's how I play the survival/indy win con, and it works for me.

True or not, it's irrelevant. I am not you. I play to win. The strategy you're sticking on me is playing to lose. It's stupid.

Could you point that out to me?[/quote]

Sure.

This post came 5 minutes before the post you made about leetic:

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:Reminder of my initial theory that INH and leetic/Golden 2.0 had civilian BTSC.

I no longer believe this, but it doesn't have to be entirely wrong. There could still be a n0 peek, or a role check, or whatever other information to inspire at least one direction of this interaction.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:Anyway, to expound on this, Jay did not voice a suspicion of me until after I pointed a finger at him.

Irrelevant. My concern was with INH and Golden. I pointed a finger at you as soon as they were eliminated from consideration.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:Jay immediately responded asking if I was worried about inh or Golden, to which I responded no. But before Jay got a response from me, he moved to the conclusion that I am the SK.

Again, your response was irrelevant. INH made his large post expanding on some of his behavior, which clued me in to his mindset and his play -- and it rendered my suspicion of Golden no longer viable. That made you the only other option. Your response to that question has no bearing on that. You can answer it however you want, you're still the last name left.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:I may have figured something out that Jay didn't, but that is a product of reading the thread, nothing to do with being town or SK (bad argument there Jay).

It isn't a bad argument. I figured it out as quickly as my uninformed brain allowed me to figure it out. I didn't have the advantage you had.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:And when have I ever given a fuck about playing to my role? You're asking the wrong player.

I don't know why these sentences exist.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:Playing to your meta might make you more likely to be nightkilled, but those chances are reduced by half if you are the SK anyway. Playing off your meta increases your chances of being lynched. Pick your poison.

Yellow: This is absolute nonsense. You're telling me that as a serial killer I don't have to worry about being night killed because one of them belongs to me. It's ridiculous. A serial killer with an LMS or similar condition must be concerned with night kills by default. It's irrelevant that the SK himself would control one of them, because he wouldn't control the other one. A serial killer who is killed by the mafia team cannot win the game, and thus he is required to remain conscious of that problem and avoid that result.

Orange: This is nonsense too, for a key reason you're ignoring: my meta is not solely defined by frantically pursuing counterwagons at EOD. It's something I have done before, but it's not something I would need to feel is a necessary component of "looking the part". If I want to look like JaggedJimmyJay, I can do that perfectly easily without endangering myself with a dramatic EOD counterwagon. Meta is a moot argument here. The argument that matters is that my engagement in that CFD counterwagon placed the spotlight squarely on me.

1. If it went my way and my counterwagon was lynched and flipped scum, I am ripe for a night kill.

2. If it didn't go my way and counterwagon was lynched and flipped town OR the original wagon was lynched and flipped scum (which is what happened), I am ripe for a lynch.

On Days 2 and 3, I was very nearly lynched. That's nonsense for a serial killer. It's recklessness that is unsuitable to that role and to say I did it anyway because "meta" is crap. It's exactly the same kind of logic Epignosis used in his arguments with Golden and I about what I would do as a mafioso. Logic cannot be ignored, but he ignored it anyway because it didn't fit his narrative. He pretended I am capable of doing anything under any circumstances regardless of whether it makes sense, and you're doing it too.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:Linki: I was the one who acknowledged that. You were the one looking at Golden.

No. I'd presented the theory that one-way information existed, and you "agreed".

Metalmarsh89 wrote:I hate this. I don't even read you as bad, but it can't be anyone else.

Another useful application of the PoE.

I know you don't read me as bad. You know I'm not.

I didn't read you as bad for most of the game, which is a testament to the great performance you've had. But I read you as bad now. You're the only option, and you realize that your only avenue to winning this game right now is to get me lynched. It shows.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:MM, tell me why I behaved the way I behaved at the end of Day 1 if I am the serial killer.

I seriously think that stretch says it all. I'm not the SK because my EOD1 makes absolutely no sense for a SK. I am confident that will be apparent to Golden and INH if they look at it objectively. If I am an LMS independent, then that means I put myself in a lose-lose scenario at the end of that day phase for no reason that could truly benefit me.

That's a WIFOM argument. You have the choice between playing to your meta and playing a more passive style. Considering the players in this game, it doesn't surprise that you'd play to your meta.

It's not WIFOM. This is the crap Epignosis was trying to argue against me too. Certain behavior in Mafia games simply does not suit certain alignments. That's the primary means by which townies can identify each other. My behavior at EOD1 wasn't about "fulfilling my meta". That's silly. I don't care about "fulfilling my meta" if the price of doing that is opening myself wide to either a night kill or a lynch. That's not sensible for a serial killer who wants to win the game, and I play Mafia to win.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:You did theorize that they had civilian BTSC, but this post shows where you were at at the beginning of this day phase. I agree that the Sloonei kill makes sense for none of us, and most especially you and I. But Sloonei is dead, and unless Golden or inh is pulling a mighty fast one on us, it's come down to you or I. It is more logical to me that Golden and inh are confirmed town than it is that you didn't nightkill Sloonei.

This is what I said on Day 4, and is the reason as to why I had more confidence that Golden and inh were town last night than you did.

Yes, I did suspect Golden to open this day phase. I made that quite clear. Since I don't have the advantage of information in my town flesh, I am forced to assess the details of this game on every level -- I theorized there was civilian BTSC, it seemed to me that INH discounted that theory, and that gave me a reason to suspect Golden. Once it became evident that INH's discounting of that theory was a survival tactic and not grounded in truth, I was able to understand their relationship and thus eliminate them from candidacy.

In a 3 vs. 1 LyLo phase coming off of a surprising Quin 2.0 town flip, a townie is going to experience paranoia. A townie is going to want to assess everyone alive before making a final decision. That's just how the town mind works. You can see Golden doing the same thing now for the people not named INH. He has leaned toward me being a townie most of the game, but he is exploring the alternative in this game-deciding phase because he must. I did the same with him, and before given a reason to eliminate him I genuinely thought there was a concerning case. I didn't hound Golden with a vote and scream for his head; I presented my case and then listened to his counterarguments.

I don't have the answers. I have to go through all of the work to get as close to the answers as I can. Because I'm town.

You have the advantage of skipping most of those steps because you're the only non-townie still living in this game. The post you made about leetic was only a reiteration of what I had already theorized. That you simply presented it as a "could be" and then moved on without even thinking about Golden or INH as serious suspects is what reveals you as the person with too much information (your own role). I presented the theory, explored it repeatedly, drew conclusions to the best of my ability based on the posts in front of me, and proceeded. You already knew the answer.