My Little Pony: Friendship is Mafia

[Aldurin]

I feel ashamed for not finding this thread sooner (I've been using the "Today's posts" button intermittently for about a week now). More so for having to let my eyes be raped by pink walls of text.

Friendshipping the Hell Out Of: Solid Snake

Reasoning is that you're trying your hardest to be the helper (which some of the scum took a crack at in the last game) and I am not getting fucked over by the tutorial guy again.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

I feel like I'm stuck in the middle of a 30 Xanatos Pileup here, and I have no idea who's running what gambits or even what level they're playing them at!

So for now I'm just gona stick with my original vote, as it does no harm to anyone and it's safer than taking a blind stab in the dark, especially since Snake made a convincing post to change votes double-backwards-sideways on myself! (Yes, I am actually confused at this point). On the one hoof, I can see Snakes point, on the other, it could be a trap (which may have backfired now). So I'm taking a third option and ignoring it for now.

Couple of questions I forgot to ask though; Do we have any idea of the ratio of town to scum, and do the scum get told who else is on their side straight away? Or are we all completely blind right now? I presume they know their teammates, in which case that might make mean Snake was trying to save his ally from being lynched by encouraging people to play "sensibly", which then backfired and made him look more suspicious instead. Of course it could just be Snake being Snake and taking thigs way too seriously. But then he could be using that as a ruse to convince us he's something he's not. But then, knowing that somebody might suspect that ruse, he could be instead being playing it totally straight! Nobody ever suspects the triple bluff! Or maybe they do in this game, I dunno.

[Mr.Bookworm]

Originally Posted by Hawk

Couple of questions I forgot to ask though; Do we have any idea of the ratio of town to scum, and do the scum get told who else is on their side straight away?

The "scum" are actually several different factions, most of them working against each other. Those within the factions know who the others are, yeah.

We can guesstimate the number of scum, though.

Originally Posted by Fenny

There is a mafia. The mafia wins when the mafia comprises half of the remaining members.

There is a cult. The cult wins when that cult comprises all of the remaining members.

Any self-aligned players win when they are the last pony standing.

The Mafia is usually 5 members, though I've seen 4 or 6 before. The cult is almost always just the one cult leader on day 1. "Self-aligned players" usually means that there's a serial killer somewhere.

So assuming no other scum (which is a dangerous assumption to make), we're looking at a base ratio of 31.8% scum. Course, that grows pretty damn fast as the nights go on, townies die, and the cult recruits people.

[Sifright]

I think scum know who they are straight away and can vote as a cohesive block to begin with, however scum often don't do so on the first day to try delay the point at which you can see a voting pattern appear unless ofcourse they have to break a tie on a potential vote between a mafiate and townie member.

Edit: we don't know town to scum ratio, and you are correct in that snake could very well be trying to save smarty as they are both scum. However we don't have the information available to conclusively say one way or the other it's certainly suspicious but that isn't really enough to warrant a lynch unless some one starts putting forth a more convincing argument.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Most games I've played have scum around 25% of the town starting out. I'm going to guess we have 4 mafia and 1 cult. Could be 1 mafia.
Re the me bandwagon: Obviousy I don'tagree with it. And I'm a pretty active poster and will make lots of posts/ie give lots of information so if I were to be scum you would get information to use against me. I'm not capable of cruising under the radar and thus for a day 1 low information boot I am a terrible terrible choice.

[rpgdemon]

So, people who haven't posted, why have you not posted? There are a fair number of you, from my rough remembering things.

Before lynching someone who is giving information to us, even if it's an attempt to be misleading, why aren't we taking out people who aren't really interested in the game (And thus won't be too torn up over being the first lynch), and aren't giving us ANYTHING to work on? They're not even helping voting swing in our favor, they're just filling space. The only downside to falsely taking one of them out is that we miss a kill on scum.

[greed]

Originally Posted by rpgdemon

So, people who haven't posted, why have you not posted? There are a fair number of you, from my rough remembering things.

Before lynching someone who is giving information to us, even if it's an attempt to be misleading, why aren't we taking out people who aren't really interested in the game (And thus won't be too torn up over being the first lynch), and aren't giving us ANYTHING to work on? They're not even helping voting swing in our favor, they're just filling space. The only downside to falsely taking one of them out is that we miss a kill on scum.

I was gonna post a random vote, then Snake posted this huge attack on random voting, so I balked. And then I wasn't on the net anymore for a few hours. I'm also active at odd times due to being in like the reverse timezone for most of you (that is US East coasters). As it is I'm not really that experienced at mafia and a lot of people are making pretty good arguments as far as I can tell.

Which leads to the issue I have at the moment. Scum hides in anonymity. Scum hides in the critics. Scum hides in the most visible posters. These are all being said, and all have been true in past games. So I'm mulling over who to vote for seeing as we seem to be heading toward taking a day one vote seriously which I haven't done before. About the only thing I can add is, the last game (Homestuck Mafia) seemed like a total cluster fuck due to massive lack of activity, so any second timers probably shouldn't judge things by that one.

[Sifright]

HOS: rpgdemon

Killing off the inactives is a very easy way for scum to even the odds of victory with out offending any of the townies and it's exactly what scum tried to pull last game. Hmmm

[rpgdemon]

Killing off an inactive player falsely doesn't do much for the scum as far as I see it. It doesn't tip the ratio towards them, as the inactive player didn't really "have" a vote to begin with.

In terms of what the town gains versus what the scum gains, we serve to gain more by killing off an inactive player than they do. We could hit them, when they're trying to hide in inactivity, instead of taking out someone who seems to be giving help and advice.

My main problem with taking out Snake/Smarty turn 1 is that it feels a lot like people just jumping on them since it was a trend, and that way they don't have to worry about their individual actions/scum can mask their kill.

This was literally the thing that WON the game for the scum last time, all the bandwagonning. Someone points a finger, someone jumps that guy, then mob mentality kicks in (And the scum start piling on), and then oh, whoops, there's another townie. The killing of inactive players was just a symptom of the bandwagon problem, not the cause of the loss.

[Sifright]

Originally Posted by rpgdemon

Killing off an inactive player falsely doesn't do much for the scum as far as I see it. It doesn't tip the ratio towards them, as the inactive player didn't really "have" a vote to begin with.

In terms of what the town gains versus what the scum gains, we serve to gain more by killing off an inactive player than they do. We could hit them, when they're trying to hide in inactivity, instead of taking out someone who seems to be giving help and advice.

My main problem with taking out Snake/Smarty turn 1 is that it feels a lot like people just jumping on them since it was a trend, and that way they don't have to worry about their individual actions/scum can mask their kill.

This was literally the thing that WON the game for the scum last time, all the bandwagonning. Someone points a finger, someone jumps that guy, then mob mentality kicks in (And the scum start piling on), and then oh, whoops, there's another townie. The killing of inactive players was just a symptom of the bandwagon problem, not the cause of the loss.

It's not that killing inactive changes the vote situation but what it does do is bring them closer to total victory especially as inactives wont always be so. On the other hand if we ignore inactives totally it gives scum a very effective way to hide.