Lynch All Lurkers Mafia! GAME OVER

[Kinetic]

lol "Crap its Kinetic"

and my favorite

"Kinetic is going to be problematic. I need to figure out a way to deal with him."

[The Fonz]

People buy 'scum mason paranoia' far too often. Heck, I've seen a town lose because a claimed mason was lynched in endgame.

[Malyss]

I shouldn't have tried to swim with the big fish. I can play a good scum, but every game in which I've been town, I've had trouble and still need to learn some good scum hunting skills.

It didn't help that I was in hell between my car breaking down and having to borrow Yos' parents' Chevy Tahoe so that I could get to work, I was working on a surprise 30th birthday party for Yos, which was held on 4/25. Given that I took the Friday off before the party to go down to the beach house to set things up, I still would have been lynched that weekend if I had not been lynched when I was lynched. There is no computer at the beach house and I would not have had access to the Internet for nearly 72 hours and I couldn't explain in the thread that I was going to be away due to the surprise party.

I still take some solace in the fact that I was suspicious of Tajo due to his overly helpful lurker lists and that I had voted Antihero for going for the lurk. I wish that I could have better expressed my suspicion of Tajo. He just seemed too helpful with the lurker list and I was worried that if we trusted the keeping of such a list to him, that he could potentially include misleading information in it.

Overall, the game was enjoyable to read. I wanted to bang my head against the wall when Tajo was manipulating Elvis at one point.

[Zorblag]

For Troll at least the issue with the Masons was that them were revealed to protect MafiaSSK who's obviously fake post restriction no had a good explanation as pro-town play. If them had come to light in some other way then them would probably have gotten much less suspicion.

It be interesting that populartajo seemed to assume that a serial killer would have killed Troll during night one if there was one. And that Troll would have been the cult recruiter if there was one. Sadly Troll has a history of largely unwarranted third party role speculation (which Troll be trying to keep under control.) This game Troll wasn't convinced that MafiaSSK wasn't a mason survivor until the game ended. In Futurama Mafia when Xtoxm claimed SK the first couple pages of the game Troll's thought was that him could be a jester as the play made no sense for a SK. When play strikes Troll as suboptimal Troll will often go look for other explanations and Troll seems to look too far afield from the reasonable. Troll should just be willing to accept suboptimal play Troll supposes.

Actually, with Futurama Mafia in mind. It be interesting that Troll has played two games with Xtoxm now and him has self hammered three times. In Futurama Mafia him self hammered as the SK on day one and then replaced back in to self hammer as a pro-town hider day three (which ended up being the game winning lynch for the mafia.) Troll was mafia that game but it was a pretty hollow victory.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Xylthixlm]

Three times in two games? Fuck man, find another hobby, or at least another site to play at. That isn't cool.

[Xylthixlm]

Self-hammering is kind of like if a soccer goalie saw an opponent taking a shot and just stood there and let it go in. It doesn't matter if it's the opponent's best scorer and there are no defenders around and you have only a tiny chance of blocking it, you have to

try

. Not trying is unfair to the rest of your team. I wouldn't play soccer with a guy who consistently did that, and I wouldn't play mafia either.

[Xylthixlm]

Of course, when I played soccer as a kid, I was the guy who did that sort of thing. That's why I play sports that don't involve running.

I think I'm getting offtopic here.

I think what I mean is that I don't want to be too hard on Xtoxm here, but I really don't want to play with someone who consistently plays badly. Of course, given how games are filled here, I'm not sure I really have a choice.

[dahill1]

SSK really "redeemed" himself this game

[Xylthixlm]

SSK really "redeemed" himself this game

I managed to avoid working myself up into a froth at just how colossally idiotic his fake PR was because I already know that SSK is a colossal idiot. I wouldn't call that redeeming himself.

If he wasn't a mason, he definitely would have gotten lynched.

[populartajo]

Sorry for not posting the qt. I was waiting for other partners of my team to express conformity with it. Mastin, you should prob have waited for this but meh, I guess zwet and Emp could care less.

Regarding DGB-Xtoxm. I still think what I said about them. Im pretty sure that there is a point in the game where your lynch is inevitable and you are fighting a battle against tunneled townies and when no one (but scum for obvious reasons) listens to you. Selfhammering is, I agree, bad sportsmanship but it still can be used for strategic reasons, like bringing suspicion to people in your wagon when you are sure scum is on it or when you simply think you are done with the game and dragging it would be prejudicial. However, it sometimes doesnt work.

[Xylthixlm]

I personally have trouble getting much useful info from an "inevitable" lynch, although I know there are people who can (or think they can). In general, I think that the closer a lynch is, the more useful info you get out of it. From that point of view, self-hammering is bad because it reduces information.

As for self-hammering for strategic reasons, well, just look at how much good it did DGB. Not only was she completely wrong about the scum, but nobody paid any attention to her scumlist after she died anyways.

[populartajo]

I personally have trouble getting much useful info from an "inevitable" lynch, although I know there are people who can (or think they can). In general, I think that the closer a lynch is, the more useful info you get out of it. From that point of view, self-hammering is bad because it reduces information.

As for self-hammering for strategic reasons, well, just look at how much good it did DGB. Not only was she completely wrong about the scum, but nobody paid any attention to her scumlist after she died anyways.

I agree with what you say, Xyl.

The point you have to evaluate is that if DGB and Xtoxm did it because they thought they were helping their team. If they did it because of this, then I dont think this is as terrible as you want it to be.

[Xylthixlm]

Yeh well I have loads of townies insisting i'm scum, and not caring about anything I have to say. I tire of it. And it's clear i'm going to be lynched before the game is out so why should I put effort in trying to delay it?

^ This sounds like the primary motivation for Xtoxm's self-hammer was giving up out of frustration, not any actual belief that it would help the town.

DGB, I can sort of see trying to be useful in her own way, but I think frustration was a big factor there too.

[Yosarian2]

Good game, everyone. Very interesting how it played out...

When I balanced the setup, I was kind of assuming that at least a couple of townies would lurk and then get lynched for it, and gave the town a couple of extra townies to compensate for that.

Terrible assumption, Yos. After WIH2, which had a pretty similar player list, it was pretty clear that no one would lurk. You even said this to me once:

LOL, yos, you knew it was impossible to lurk in this game, huh?

Well, we'll see.

Ironically enough, the one who lurked was one of the mafiates.

But after all, it was a fun game. I love this kind of games. Thx for it. Fast and furious with very nice players that can make a point without posting wallotexts.

There were lurkers in war in heaven, though.

This is literally the first game on mafiascum I've ever seen without any real lurkers.

[Xylthixlm]

Probably 95% of the time self-hammering is a bad move, and people are doing it because they want out of the game and then rationalizing it to themselves. That's why it needs to be so heavily discouraged - it's too easy for frustrated players to convince themselves that their self-hammer is the right thing

this time

even though it really isn't.

[Yosarian2]

And, yeah; I do think DGB was trying to help her team.

She seems to have a strategy of...well, of going batshit insane at moments where she thinks that her going batshit insane would do the town good. When she does that, she becomes wildly unpredictable, to an extreme degree, and sometimes it does help the town win. I'm pretty sure that she tactically chooses her moments there, too.

[Xylthixlm]

I read the autobiography of a south vietnamese artillery commander during the vietnam war. He had an excellent piece of advice: "You have to be a technician before you can become an artist." Whatever it is you're doing,

first

you become skilled at doing it by the book and

then

you start doing stuff they don't teach in the book.

I see something really similar in IRC mafia. Newbies (once they learn the rules and the bot) sometimes go through a phase of trying stupid tricks like lying as town, roleblocking the cop, self-voting, etc. Once this is soundly beaten out of them, they go on to become competent players. If they play long enough, eventually they start doing things like lying as town, roleblocking the cop, self-voting, etc. again, except now they only do them at the right times.

I'm not sure what phase DGB is at.

[Yosarian2]

Well, there's an alternate path. It's "Play really crazy and totally unlike how anyone else plays, do insane things that seem bizzare and irrational, then keep modifying your insane playstyle until it actually helps you start winning games." DGB actually tends to win more games then she loses in the past year or so, because she's managed to figure out ways to use her playstyle to help her side.

[roflcopter]

i would say that dgb's team won despite her this game

[Xylthixlm]

I believe that path exists, but it's definitely the "scenic" route. Imagine that you are at the beginning of the long and winding Road of Newbieness, at the end of which lies the General Store of Competence (maps and compasses available!), surrounded by the Jungle of Wacky Play in which lies the Lost Temple of Perfect Unpredictability. Some people will head straight down the road. Some people will go into the jungle, realize that they're not going to find the temple this way, and head back to the road. And a few people will wander the jungle until they eventually stumble upon the temple, at which point they'll find people in the first two groups smugly asking what took them so long.

[populartajo]

Just for the record, if I had been town I would also have defended both DGB and Xtomx and would have fought (more intensevely obv obv) against their lynches. I dont think they were obv scum as some proposed.

Im pretty sure on this. Some of my defense of both came out very natural.

[SpyreX]

X asked to be lynched. DGB did much the same.

I -do- regret actually lynching DGB considering what I had said but the fact I could have been wrong + eliminating the fight-noise at that point made it seem good.

[Xylthixlm]

As a policy, I always lynch anyone who asks to be lynched, regardless of whether or not I think they're scum.

I do not foresee this policy changing in the future.

[SpyreX]

I'm down.

[Zorblag]

Ah, yes, and Troll forgot to say that Troll enjoyed this game as much as any other Troll has played here while Troll was still in it. Troll thanks Yosarian2 and Ether much for the great work modding it and all the other players for giving Troll a most pleasant experience.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh