That's annoying, I was planning on posting my Voxx case tonight. Emo's actions towards Proph before day 5 and Voxx/AE's actions during day 5 made me want to wait until day 6 or 7 before deciding on Emo and Proph. I had been hoping to get responses from both Emo and Proph before changing tracks.
At least the reread let me notice another scum tell.
Unless you wanted to use my (100% legitimate) inactivity against me, I don't think you had a strong enough case to sway TPM or Caex - Proph might have voted for me just because he knew he was town and some chance is better than none, but yeah.
Regardless, it's a moot point - no case was posted, and it's over (finally).
I'm pretty disappointed in Emo and how the last day played out, though. Excessive lurking to secure a victory is something that bothers me.
It honestly wasn't intentional Voxx. I kept meaning to get in here and push it harder. I actually did reread some stuff but never got around to typing it into a post. I was pretty apathetic even though we basically had the win secured.
Michael Cole: "And so at long last, children, the Hunger Games Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny has come to a close. There were tears of sadness, tears of rage, tears of joy, and tears of pain.
I feel somewhat like a poet."
(Cole walks off-camera.)
Unknown narrator: But in the end, all the scum really wanted was peace and quiet; to settle down and not be bothered by superheroish activities or movies or TV shows
"Get off my lawn, bro." Wolverine said to the remaining townies.
Bond winks at a passing girl and asks for a drink. A martini, of course. Fittingly, she brings it to him, stumbling over her dress in the process and tumbling into the lava.
"Son of a-" he started.
"Every time, man. Every time. You really should stop with the women." The Doctor gave a disapproving shake of his head.
Then the three mused over their fallen compatriot - Darkwing Duck. There was a brief eulogy. Then there was nothing but peace and quiet.
@AG I will not spoil the scumteam for you to have a chance to make your bets.
No time atm, content soon. Congrats to the scumteam! It really was a brilliant game imho, all of them played quite well (at least until last day, this day was quite bad).
The game is not being dumbed down. Control is doing fine; Draw-Go is not the only kind of control. Aggro is doing fine; Red Deck Wins is not the only kind of aggro. Creature combat is an important core concept and belongs in every color. Mythic rarity is not destroying the game. People whine too much for no good reason. Magic is more popular than ever, so keep calm, brew some decks and play some damn cards.
I'd like to apologize for what happened on Day 3. Between being frustrated that I'd replaced in without reading first (bad idea), it being ridiculously hot at the time (which does nothing to help the frustration), and just generally feeling dead-ended between replacing into a horrible position and the whole "let's end Days early rather than lynching the person who needs to be lynched while vanilla" shenanigans...
...but that's just excuses, really, and what I should have done is just made the PM to request replacement during N2 rather than getting frustrated over "HEY LET'S DO ANOTHER GO-ROUND ON THE 'POKE ME' WHEEL, SINCE THE FIRST TWO TIMES WERE SO PRODUCTIVE".
The scum team didn't have to 'play brilliantly', the town was too busy getting screwed over by non-thread mechanics for the scum to have to worry about it. 2 of the scum team performed pitifully IMO, and were easily figured out in the spectator thread...and should have been lynched before this game ended. Not that it would have mattered ultimately, most likely.
I thought that Voxx's performance was fantastic. Literally one of the best mafioso performances I have ever experienced. I didn't believe that he was scum until it was more or less confirmed in the spectator thread. The town should probably be glad that the game just ended now, because I honestly don't think anyone was ever going to make a Voxx lynch happen successfully.
I see that the identity of the final scum hasn't been revealed, so I won't comment on that yet.
@MDenham: Hopefully this serves as a lesson to you, that you should read at least the last couple pages of a game BEFORE you replace into it. Because seriously, nobody should EVER have replaced into that spot. It is completely pointless to do so. Pinky should have just resigned herself to her fate and gotten lynched and gotten it over with when it would do the least damage. Actually she should have claimed her role with her very first post and requested to be Vigged, but that's something different.
@MDenham: Hopefully this serves as a lesson to you, that you should read at least the last couple pages of a game BEFORE you replace into it. Because seriously, nobody should EVER have replaced into that spot. It is completely pointless to do so. Pinky should have just resigned herself to her fate and gotten lynched and gotten it over with when it would do the least damage. Actually she should have claimed her role with her very first post and requested to be Vigged, but that's something different.
Honestly, between this and the first game I ever played (off-site) where I replaced in as well, I'm doubtful about replacing in until I have a lot more games under my belt, period.
And I'm probably holding off on playing again after the Clan game finishes up for at least another year just because I enjoy reading the games more than I enjoy playing them at this point (and because sticking to reading the games rather than playing in them should make me better at picking up tells, hopefully).
But yes, you're entirely right about everything there.
I wouldn't beat yourself up over it too badly. Just learn from your mistakes(we all make them, regardless of experience level) and do better next time. You shouldn't need to wait an entire year to play another game.
Nah Proph, you were done for. FB even did a good job(possibly not on purpose) of implicating you by waffling on whether or not to be involved in your wagon. The best thing you could have done would be to get lynched sooner so that the scum wouldn't have such an easy mislynch candidate for lynch or lose.
Heh. I can't say the mafia didn't deserve the win, despite 2 out of 3 remaining scum lurking to the win, because the town basically didn't deserve it at all. pinky killed the cop, Taredas screwed up on day 1, I was pretty off... Caex semi-confirmed himself on day 1 and proceeded to do absolutely nothing, TPM was totally confirmed and didn't do much, and MDenham... well, the least said about that the better.
Most of my comments can be found in the spectator thread. The first three days or so weren't Mafia, they were 'Abilities.game'. The suicide rule was a terrible idea.
@Proph - perhaps you might have said something about how totally ridiculous Voxxicus saying that the only way Emo could be scum would be scum with you was. (I kid. Cyan's probably right - no one else was really bothering any more any way. I mean, I had little idea what was going on except what was in spec chat, popped in, and immediately spotted how ridiculous that post was. No one living bothered.)
@MDenham - there's a big difference between being frustrated, and actively taking that frustration out on your own team by threatening to sabotage them for two days, then actually doing in on day 3. That's beyond the pale, to my mind. As Cyan said, I hope you learn from this.
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Esper Simperer; Even the court homonculi need someone to look down on.
Jund Fangirl; Few things can describe the bliss of the fangirl's cries fading to silence (broken by occasional munching sounds).
Grixis Emo; 'Why should I go out there? They're all uncaring zombies! *sniff* No one understands me...' Bant Wageslave; Behind every successful knight is a corporate drudge doing his taxwork.
Naya Overenthusiast; Because there is such a thing as too much enthusiasm.
I had a lot of apathy for the game due to the artifact mechanic from the start, but I don't replace out, and I do everything I can to fulfill win conditions.
Yes, I was blatantly scummy the final day, but it was calculated - I didn't see TPM or Caex lynching me, and I wanted to force the lynch home, even if it was a bit heavy handed. Since it wouldn't really matter how bad I looked after Proph flipped town because.... game would be over.
Taredas was kind of right but for wrong-ish reasons. I was mostly ignoring MDenham because he wasn't something we were going to deal with - he was written off as scum in my reads, and I was focused on other things. He's right that I tend to consider replacements doing that a scum tell, but I'm not so sure I wouldn't have ignored it as town, also, as he wasn't lynchable, and therefore I didn't care about him, heh.
I'd apologize for my activity levels this game, but that was a recurring problem for a lot of people, town and scum alike, I guess. I just promise that it was all 100% genuine - I never intentionally lurk, and hope people don't think less of me for not being extremely active as scum. Just a mix of life and apathy kicked in, especially after the game was sort of invalidated in my mind by the self-hammering cluster****.
I'm dreading this game being used as meta against me though, as I really don't feel it's an accurate representation of my scum game. My feelings about item mechanics are pretty well known, and the apathy and laziness prooooobbbbably would have been staples of my town play in this game.
Hopefully I never am scum again as I loathe being scum with a passion, but it'll no doubt happen at some point, heh.
Thanks to DRey for the game, and I'm sorry we didn't really do it justice - I don't really blame you for anything that happened (although I'd recommend never including self-hammer rule in games again. I understand that you wanted scum to be able to cut town artifact coordination short, but it is just an inherently unfun element).
Taredas was killed because the EtR wagon did point directly as me as scum, and it left me as the primary force of personality left in the game to Make Things Happen - enabling the watcher gambit was a secondary plus, as Emo catching someone shooting TPM would basically confirm Emo as town, imo. There's no way they'd shoot TPM over Town Emo. But the WiFOM play was plausible, even if it wouldn't have flown with a more invested town.
Any feedback is welcome and such. My scum game is something I want to improve, even if primarily due to upcoming crosstown mafia stuff.
I will admit that I couldn't get a read on Proph. The only reason I came back from wanting to lynch Proph was because Emo was claiming the 3rd information role, Emo had been setting up an attack on Proph prior to day 5, and AE and Voxx were too interested in a Proph lynch for my liking.
Cyan, what about my attack on Voxx was scummy? It seemed pretty clear to me that he was scum making lists to look useful. He was caught lying in those lists and refused to take responsibility for his own words, that seemed 100% scum to me. After that, every time he posted content it was purely scum content.
I don't remember what bothered me about it at the time.
And it is definitely not true that every time people make lists, they're scum trying to look useful. I apparently missed the part where he was 'caught lying in those lists and refused to take responsibility'.
Good catch on your part either way. But 'knowing' that a person is scum isn't enough. You have to make everyone else believe it too. Nothing feels worse than what you're experiencing right now..knowing that an entire game could have gone a different way(if Voxx got lynched, Emodoctor and the other scum ultimately would have as well, IMO) if you had just done a little better in convincing people of something that you were right about. That exact feeling is why I absolutely hate giving up on people that I think are scum(though admittedly, over the last year or so I have come off of this some). I don't want them to fool me and win the game because of it. This has happened to me before(Axelrod in Intergalactic Fleet Mafia) and it really sucks.
I don't think I had the inconsistencies you're thinking I did - separating my read list into clusters of Probably Town and Not Town is terminology I use as town frequently, which anyone that has played multiple games with me, or read my notes would know.
I play a continual PoE type of game - I town hunt, and I try to slowly narrow down the pool of players that I think scum can reside in, tier-ing it off into stronger and weaker scum reads once I get more invested into the game and have time to re-read in depth.
The 'case' against me was bad and made no sense, so I ignored it, just as I would as town. Admittedly as town I probably would have followed through more by trying to figure out if you were derping town or scum, but the apathy and laziness kicked in a bit there.
The thing that pricked my ears was when you claimed your list was the communal town list, not your own reads. I looked back and didn't find any support for your list from other players. Your reaction to my attack also came across as very fake. It wasn't the list making that made me suspect you, it was what you were trying to accomplish with your list. You were trying to control the lynch while keeping your hands clean.
I believe Seppel and TPM were both making lists at that time, but they were taking responsibility for their reads and stood behind their reads.
One thing that really stood out in the reread was that scum never even attempted to poke you. You were clearly being ignored by the scumteam, which combined with you having someone on you all game, made you 100% scum. I couldn't imagine a scumteam just leaving you alone if you were town.
Idk, it's just the frustration of how the game ended. I felt hopeless after Mao flipping town. But after my reread, I realized that the town could win because Voxx and AE both had tons of evidence against them and one of Emo or Proph would probably slip in the meantime. Going from hopeless, to close to victory, to a sudden end was frustrating.
I remember comparing you between this game and Basic 76, which I hope is kosher since we've both flipped in that game. Your play there was such a stark contrast to this one that I found you obvtown.
Eugh. The roles were pretty cool (with the exception of MDenham's) but that self-lynching thing early on really messed up planning artifact uses for the day. Combine that with the non-existent and/or uninterested town (we were all pretty bad) later on and the scum basically just played the game by themselves.
GG scum. And GG to Voxx especially. You probably never would have been lynched.
AE really should have been lynched before Emo or Proph. He was at the top of everybody's scumlist, whereas Emo v. Proph wasn't quite as clear. When Emo didn't die another night, it would have been much easier to figure out he was scum.
Everything scares me... kitties scare me... squirrels scare me... corpses....corpses bring forth a pletora of confusing feeling which i prefer not to dwell on...:p
The scum team didn't have to 'play brilliantly', the town was too busy getting screwed over by non-thread mechanics for the scum to have to worry about it. 2 of the scum team performed pitifully IMO, and were easily figured out in the spectator thread...and should have been lynched before this game ended. Not that it would have mattered ultimately, most likely.
I thought that Voxx's performance was fantastic. Literally one of the best mafioso performances I have ever experienced. I didn't believe that he was scum until it was more or less confirmed in the spectator thread. The town should probably be glad that the game just ended now, because I honestly don't think anyone was ever going to make a Voxx lynch happen successfully.
I see that the identity of the final scum hasn't been revealed, so I won't comment on that yet.
@MDenham: Hopefully this serves as a lesson to you, that you should read at least the last couple pages of a game BEFORE you replace into it. Because seriously, nobody should EVER have replaced into that spot. It is completely pointless to do so. Pinky should have just resigned herself to her fate and gotten lynched and gotten it over with when it would do the least damage. Actually she should have claimed her role with her very first post and requested to be Vigged, but that's something different.
I had some person issues I would rather not discuss come up during my time here. If anything the miscommunication on day 1 really hurt this town. If things had worked out day 1 with the lynch of 2 players like planed day 3 outburst would never had happened. What happened after I left is not my fault, MDeham had his own bad play moments, including threatening to vote himself.
As I stated in the QT I had not been a princess before and over at ms I never saw anyone ever need to claim it first post. Also there was no vig and I had the artifact to kill a player. I felt the self vote rule was a horrible idea to have in this game, especially with a princess role in the game.
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I am female, hear me roar!
mafia win/lose record
town (12) 6/6
mafia (2) 2/0
Cult (1) 1/0
3rd party (0) 0/0
Cyan in spec chat-Unrelatedly, even if the town doesn't win, I *really* hope that they get rid of AE. His scumminess is sooooooooooo obvious.
I'd just like to point out that I pegged you as scum on what, your very first post of the game? I never forgot about you either, other people just kept acting scummier and getting in the way. And they kept being town.
@Pinky: Don't kid yourself. You point blank shot me, based on absolutely nothing, other than a possible dislike of my playstyle. Protocols such as 'players claiming' exist for a reason. Had you played like townies are supposed to, that entire situation would have been avoided. You weren't entirely responsible for MDenham dying, but I doubt anyone was going to get out of the situation that you created.
MDenham did a pretty good job of digging himself out, before the whole suicide ordeal. He managed to convince me that he was town when I didn't think it would be possible.
Cyan in spec chat-Unrelatedly, even if the town doesn't win, I *really* hope that they get rid of AE. His scumminess is sooooooooooo obvious.
I'd just like to point out that I pegged you as scum on what, your very first post of the game? I never forgot about you either, other people just kept acting scummier and getting in the way. And they kept being town.
Yea I never understood that. I would have made that same post as town. It was just coming from oog. That's all Jack did was save the day, and he never died.
Cyan in spec chat-Unrelatedly, even if the town doesn't win, I *really* hope that they get rid of AE. His scumminess is sooooooooooo obvious.
I'd just like to point out that I pegged you as scum on what, your very first post of the game? I never forgot about you either, other people just kept acting scummier and getting in the way. And they kept being town.
Yea I never understood that. I would have made that same post as town. It was just coming from oog. That's all Jack did was save the day, and he never died.
If I tell you what I noticed about it, you might not do that anymore as scum.
Cyan in spec chat-Unrelatedly, even if the town doesn't win, I *really* hope that they get rid of AE. His scumminess is sooooooooooo obvious.
I'd just like to point out that I pegged you as scum on what, your very first post of the game? I never forgot about you either, other people just kept acting scummier and getting in the way. And they kept being town.
Yea I never understood that. I would have made that same post as town. It was just coming from oog. That's all Jack did was save the day, and he never died.
If I tell you what I noticed about it, you might not do that anymore as scum.
Setup
As noticed by most the Artifacts have an inane pro-town quality and required a setup that favored the scum, the town is low on night actions and has more passives to help balance the big drawback of the Princess. The watcher was not very effective against the town and was there mostly as a way for the scum to hunt the CL. The untargetable also was added to prevent an easy CL win.
My mistakes
I made a lot of mistakes in this game, first the initial Role PM mistake that Seppel took advantage in a underhanded way (trying to confirm a townie), it greatly disappointed me and I expected more from him. Then the Artifacts wording that have been less than stellar, ending in Taredas misplay that I certainly have blame for not anticipating the confusing wording. The last one that I remember was not noticing the nefarious interaction between the suicide rule(that was also heavily disliked) and the Princess role. I take all responsibility from the mistakes here and have learned a lot from them. I'm kinda sad some players think this game was a big failure and while certainly some bad things happened and probably overshadowed the good parts I still like to think most players enjoyed the game.
What worked
I think players enjoyed the "choose your role" gimmick and I have received some compliments about the scenes and stuff, unfortunately I cannot receive the credit for this because mostly of the writing were done by DYH (thanks buddy!) and the players themselves. I think the artifacts also worked as expected, give the players a head start to conversation and another puzzle characteristic that I think mafia players usually enjoy thinking about, mostly of them were not powerful but required lots of thinking by their owners to be of any use, and this was on purpose, I want this to be a game of mafia and not a game about artifacts so see them fading into obscurity as the game progressed, I think I accomplished that.
Players
It's funny that when I rolled the teams I though to myself "geez, this mafia has no chance, all the best players are in the town". Cyan, Seppel, Taredas, Caex, Rhand, dC, Eron, Pinky are all players that I know are very capable. ThePuppetMaster also looked like a vet, but I had no idea who he was, the scum team thinks it's AI, and I thought I was Dragonmaster for a while but I don't know, and maybe never will...
Voxx I knew is a good townie but I've never seen he play as scum so I had no idea how good he would be. Fade I know is a vet and I expected him to lead the scum.
In the end what has happened were town mistakes after mistakes. From the top of my head.
*PB blindly firing without a claim first.
*Taredas misreading his role PM and activating Rhand's artifact. Yes this is a mistake because he failed to understand his role, AG had a similar Artifact and had the hunch to clarify with me if "reveal" was the same of "activate".
*Cyan revealing his guilty verdict without the town finishing artifact coordination. Yes this is a mistake because at that point the suicide rule was a known thing.
*Mdehan suiciding in a most negative fashion. That was kinda the nail in the coffin of the town, the morale just crumbled at that point.
*ThePuppetMaster abrasive playstyle was not necessary, he even trash talked people he though were town, how this achieves anything?
In the end the town has not played well and never had a chance, all their reads were mostly wrong all the time. I didn't like how the mafia played either, Emo and AE were both non-entities for most of the game and lurked into an easy victory. Emo's last gambit was kinda botched but somehow it still worked, certainly not because of the execution but more because the town was so fed up at that point and Proph was an easy mislynch.
Townies
@Proph Sorry but you played badly buddy, it didn't help that Fade set you up from the get go but you never second guessed Voxx when it was apparent he was scum at the last minute. I quite liked you last day defense but it was just too late to have an impact, even if the town had lynched Emo first I still think you would've been lynched before Voxx.
Rhand, Caex, Mao didn't live to my expectations, Mao performance was particularly egregious since he replaced in as Seppel (considered town by all) and STILL managed to get lynched after doing nothing for the whole time. Eron and Cyan did what were expected from their roles. dC was not particularly good but still managed to eat a NK as a VT so that was good. Taredas is a strange one, he was wrong about everything, yet he was still feared by the scum and a hard worker. I think if he was given one more day he would both discover the scumteam and lynch them by himself, even so I can't give a MVP for a player so very wrong at majority of the time.
Town MVP goes to Atheist God. "but why DRey? What AG did in this game?" Well, differently from the rest of the town, AG was the one with mostly correct reads all the time, he pushed for the scum, he asked good questions and posted solid, yet confusing cases. The real problem with AG is that he has no convincing powers, his posts are often hard to grasp and don't convince anyone but he had the correct ideas. He just need to work on presentation.
Scum
AE is AE, enough said. I disliked Emo play and found him very scummy but he still managed to reach to the end game, and there's no argument against results, considering this was his second scum game it was a good performance that didn't doom his team. Fade was excellent and his insights in the scumchat were really good, he didn't do anything scummy and had not Cyan been the cop (and firing at him just because he's Fade and not because he found he scummy) he would probably endgamed, his suicide also was a correct move that greatly helped his team, unfortunately I cannot give him the MVP because he played for so little but he's certainly a honorable mention.
Scum MVP goes to Voxx, he started shy and didn't do anything for the first Day or so, but he shone very brightly at the mid game and take the mantle from Fade with spades. In the end he dropped the ball as noticed by some players but at that point the game was effectively over and the scum handily won.
Thanks for playing and hope to see you again. Next time it will certainly be better.
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The game is not being dumbed down. Control is doing fine; Draw-Go is not the only kind of control. Aggro is doing fine; Red Deck Wins is not the only kind of aggro. Creature combat is an important core concept and belongs in every color. Mythic rarity is not destroying the game. People whine too much for no good reason. Magic is more popular than ever, so keep calm, brew some decks and play some damn cards.
Just finished rereading this while waiting for games to open up... And if it confirms anything for me, it's that it really annoys me when people say "100%, totally definitely confirmed scum there!" based off some slip or tell. How many people had "confirmed" scum in their lists? If you say someone is confirmed scum, you better be right about it or at least have strong reasonings. Doing otherwise just hurts town, because then they flip town and there's suspicion on you (which, unless you are a PR throwing off Mafia's NK, you shouldn't want).
I think that kind of attitude is really what led MDenham to suicide. Not justifying it, but I can definitely see the reasoning. He replaced in to a tough spot, did his best to give reads, and no matter what he gets met with "Uh uh no way, you're scum". Taredas, Cyan and a few others weren't even really listening, and found ways to twist whatever he said into scumtells.
Frankly (and maybe this is newbishness speaking), I was amazed that people were willing to lynch Pinky without the vanillafier first. I could see not believing the claim, but those who were pushing for the lynch before seeing if there was a way to counteract the drawback surprised me.
But yeah, Pinky's actions were pretty horrible as town. Dug a huge hole... Sometimes one person can really mess up a game. Sorry to everyone who didnt enjoy playing, but it was a fun read.
Your analysis is quite good. Add this as another point against this town, even if you are 99% sure of something there's no excuse for working around it just in case. Town had all the tools to neutralize Princess and they messed up again and again.
In fact there's an explanation for that behavior, in MTGS there's some universal "tells" that people pass forward like a bible. One of those is that "fencesitting is scummy" townie cannot have "doubts" in their reads or beliefs, the thing is: every townie has doubt, all the time, it's inherent because they have little information about the setup, they can only speculate. I know I'm always in doubt but I learned to always express myself in certainty, not because I'm really certain of stuff but because it's considered less scummy.
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The game is not being dumbed down. Control is doing fine; Draw-Go is not the only kind of control. Aggro is doing fine; Red Deck Wins is not the only kind of aggro. Creature combat is an important core concept and belongs in every color. Mythic rarity is not destroying the game. People whine too much for no good reason. Magic is more popular than ever, so keep calm, brew some decks and play some damn cards.
ITT: DRey refuses to accept responsibility for putting a terrible role AND a terrible game mechanic into his game, and instead continues to just blame everything on the town.
Good luck getting reputable players to sign up for another one of your games any time soon.
Unrelatedly, the day that people start getting a pass on things like fencesitting is the day that entire scum teams commit to a 'do nothing but lurk' strategy and win through it. Bad playstyles have to be punished as much as scummy play does.
You are crazy, and I seriously doesn't know what you are talking about.
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The game is not being dumbed down. Control is doing fine; Draw-Go is not the only kind of control. Aggro is doing fine; Red Deck Wins is not the only kind of aggro. Creature combat is an important core concept and belongs in every color. Mythic rarity is not destroying the game. People whine too much for no good reason. Magic is more popular than ever, so keep calm, brew some decks and play some damn cards.
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AGod, did you win?
At least the reread let me notice another scum tell.
With Taredas dead.
Which was why he was dead.
Regardless, it's a moot point - no case was posted, and it's over (finally).
I'm pretty disappointed in Emo and how the last day played out, though. Excessive lurking to secure a victory is something that bothers me.
Sig & Avvy by Disappointing Signets Inc.
CCC&G BRAGGING RIGHTS
Mafia Statistics
I collect pacifism: 228
Michael Cole: "And so at long last, children, the
Hunger GamesUltimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny has come to a close. There were tears of sadness, tears of rage, tears of joy, and tears of pain.I feel somewhat like a poet."
(Cole walks off-camera.)
Unknown narrator: But in the end, all the scum really wanted was peace and quiet; to settle down and not be bothered by superheroish activities or movies or TV shows
"Get off my lawn, bro." Wolverine said to the remaining townies.
Bond winks at a passing girl and asks for a drink. A martini, of course. Fittingly, she brings it to him, stumbling over her dress in the process and tumbling into the lava.
"Son of a-" he started.
"Every time, man. Every time. You really should stop with the women." The Doctor gave a disapproving shake of his head.
Then the three mused over their fallen compatriot - Darkwing Duck. There was a brief eulogy. Then there was nothing but peace and quiet.
It was all just a memory now.
V/LA: 3/21-3/24 & 3/27-3/29
No time atm, content soon. Congrats to the scumteam! It really was a brilliant game imho, all of them played quite well (at least until last day, this day was quite bad).
Spec: http://www.quicktopic.com/50/H/sAhTG8LnDAJ5
Mafia:http://www.quicktopic.com/50/H/azpbLn5GyKew
Mythic rarity is not destroying the game. People whine too much for no good reason. Magic is more popular than ever, so keep calm, brew some decks and play some damn cards.
...but that's just excuses, really, and what I should have done is just made the PM to request replacement during N2 rather than getting frustrated over "HEY LET'S DO ANOTHER GO-ROUND ON THE 'POKE ME' WHEEL, SINCE THE FIRST TWO TIMES WERE SO PRODUCTIVE".
(Probably NSFW) So you may have heard I'm trying to write a TV series...
Most Nominated for Random Categories, 2013
I thought that Voxx's performance was fantastic. Literally one of the best mafioso performances I have ever experienced. I didn't believe that he was scum until it was more or less confirmed in the spectator thread. The town should probably be glad that the game just ended now, because I honestly don't think anyone was ever going to make a Voxx lynch happen successfully.
I see that the identity of the final scum hasn't been revealed, so I won't comment on that yet.
@MDenham: Hopefully this serves as a lesson to you, that you should read at least the last couple pages of a game BEFORE you replace into it. Because seriously, nobody should EVER have replaced into that spot. It is completely pointless to do so. Pinky should have just resigned herself to her fate and gotten lynched and gotten it over with when it would do the least damage. Actually she should have claimed her role with her very first post and requested to be Vigged, but that's something different.
And I'm probably holding off on playing again after the Clan game finishes up for at least another year just because I enjoy reading the games more than I enjoy playing them at this point (and because sticking to reading the games rather than playing in them should make me better at picking up tells, hopefully).
But yes, you're entirely right about everything there.
(Probably NSFW) So you may have heard I'm trying to write a TV series...
Most Nominated for Random Categories, 2013
Agree on the Voxx performance. Couldn't believe it when he revealed in thread and spent an hour on the bus mulling on his performance.
Most of my comments can be found in the spectator thread. The first three days or so weren't Mafia, they were 'Abilities.game'. The suicide rule was a terrible idea.
@Proph - perhaps you might have said something about how totally ridiculous Voxxicus saying that the only way Emo could be scum would be scum with you was. (I kid. Cyan's probably right - no one else was really bothering any more any way. I mean, I had little idea what was going on except what was in spec chat, popped in, and immediately spotted how ridiculous that post was. No one living bothered.)
@MDenham - there's a big difference between being frustrated, and actively taking that frustration out on your own team by threatening to sabotage them for two days, then actually doing in on day 3. That's beyond the pale, to my mind. As Cyan said, I hope you learn from this.
Jund Fangirl; Few things can describe the bliss of the fangirl's cries fading to silence (broken by occasional munching sounds).
Grixis Emo; 'Why should I go out there? They're all uncaring zombies! *sniff* No one understands me...'
Bant Wageslave; Behind every successful knight is a corporate drudge doing his taxwork.
Naya Overenthusiast; Because there is such a thing as too much enthusiasm.
Yes, I was blatantly scummy the final day, but it was calculated - I didn't see TPM or Caex lynching me, and I wanted to force the lynch home, even if it was a bit heavy handed. Since it wouldn't really matter how bad I looked after Proph flipped town because.... game would be over.
Taredas was kind of right but for wrong-ish reasons. I was mostly ignoring MDenham because he wasn't something we were going to deal with - he was written off as scum in my reads, and I was focused on other things. He's right that I tend to consider replacements doing that a scum tell, but I'm not so sure I wouldn't have ignored it as town, also, as he wasn't lynchable, and therefore I didn't care about him, heh.
I'd apologize for my activity levels this game, but that was a recurring problem for a lot of people, town and scum alike, I guess. I just promise that it was all 100% genuine - I never intentionally lurk, and hope people don't think less of me for not being extremely active as scum. Just a mix of life and apathy kicked in, especially after the game was sort of invalidated in my mind by the self-hammering cluster****.
I'm dreading this game being used as meta against me though, as I really don't feel it's an accurate representation of my scum game. My feelings about item mechanics are pretty well known, and the apathy and laziness prooooobbbbably would have been staples of my town play in this game.
Hopefully I never am scum again as I loathe being scum with a passion, but it'll no doubt happen at some point, heh.
Thanks to DRey for the game, and I'm sorry we didn't really do it justice - I don't really blame you for anything that happened (although I'd recommend never including self-hammer rule in games again. I understand that you wanted scum to be able to cut town artifact coordination short, but it is just an inherently unfun element).
Taredas was killed because the EtR wagon did point directly as me as scum, and it left me as the primary force of personality left in the game to Make Things Happen - enabling the watcher gambit was a secondary plus, as Emo catching someone shooting TPM would basically confirm Emo as town, imo. There's no way they'd shoot TPM over Town Emo. But the WiFOM play was plausible, even if it wouldn't have flown with a more invested town.
Any feedback is welcome and such. My scum game is something I want to improve, even if primarily due to upcoming crosstown mafia stuff.
Cyan, what about my attack on Voxx was scummy? It seemed pretty clear to me that he was scum making lists to look useful. He was caught lying in those lists and refused to take responsibility for his own words, that seemed 100% scum to me. After that, every time he posted content it was purely scum content.
And it is definitely not true that every time people make lists, they're scum trying to look useful. I apparently missed the part where he was 'caught lying in those lists and refused to take responsibility'.
Good catch on your part either way. But 'knowing' that a person is scum isn't enough. You have to make everyone else believe it too. Nothing feels worse than what you're experiencing right now..knowing that an entire game could have gone a different way(if Voxx got lynched, Emodoctor and the other scum ultimately would have as well, IMO) if you had just done a little better in convincing people of something that you were right about. That exact feeling is why I absolutely hate giving up on people that I think are scum(though admittedly, over the last year or so I have come off of this some). I don't want them to fool me and win the game because of it. This has happened to me before(Axelrod in Intergalactic Fleet Mafia) and it really sucks.
I play a continual PoE type of game - I town hunt, and I try to slowly narrow down the pool of players that I think scum can reside in, tier-ing it off into stronger and weaker scum reads once I get more invested into the game and have time to re-read in depth.
The 'case' against me was bad and made no sense, so I ignored it, just as I would as town. Admittedly as town I probably would have followed through more by trying to figure out if you were derping town or scum, but the apathy and laziness kicked in a bit there.
I believe Seppel and TPM were both making lists at that time, but they were taking responsibility for their reads and stood behind their reads.
One thing that really stood out in the reread was that scum never even attempted to poke you. You were clearly being ignored by the scumteam, which combined with you having someone on you all game, made you 100% scum. I couldn't imagine a scumteam just leaving you alone if you were town.
Idk, it's just the frustration of how the game ended. I felt hopeless after Mao flipping town. But after my reread, I realized that the town could win because Voxx and AE both had tons of evidence against them and one of Emo or Proph would probably slip in the meantime. Going from hopeless, to close to victory, to a sudden end was frustrating.
I remember comparing you between this game and Basic 76, which I hope is kosher since we've both flipped in that game. Your play there was such a stark contrast to this one that I found you obvtown.
GG scum. And GG to Voxx especially. You probably never would have been lynched.
AE really should have been lynched before Emo or Proph. He was at the top of everybody's scumlist, whereas Emo v. Proph wasn't quite as clear. When Emo didn't die another night, it would have been much easier to figure out he was scum.
{Magic: The RPG}
They hate us cause they ain't us.
I had some person issues I would rather not discuss come up during my time here. If anything the miscommunication on day 1 really hurt this town. If things had worked out day 1 with the lynch of 2 players like planed day 3 outburst would never had happened. What happened after I left is not my fault, MDeham had his own bad play moments, including threatening to vote himself.
As I stated in the QT I had not been a princess before and over at ms I never saw anyone ever need to claim it first post. Also there was no vig and I had the artifact to kill a player. I felt the self vote rule was a horrible idea to have in this game, especially with a princess role in the game.
mafia win/lose record
town (12) 6/6
mafia (2) 2/0
Cult (1) 1/0
3rd party (0) 0/0
mafia record
Also known at mafiascum as farside22
I'd just like to point out that I pegged you as scum on what, your very first post of the game? I never forgot about you either, other people just kept acting scummier and getting in the way. And they kept being town.
@Pinky: Don't kid yourself. You point blank shot me, based on absolutely nothing, other than a possible dislike of my playstyle. Protocols such as 'players claiming' exist for a reason. Had you played like townies are supposed to, that entire situation would have been avoided. You weren't entirely responsible for MDenham dying, but I doubt anyone was going to get out of the situation that you created.
Yea I never understood that. I would have made that same post as town. It was just coming from oog. That's all Jack did was save the day, and he never died.
They hate us cause they ain't us.
If I tell you what I noticed about it, you might not do that anymore as scum.
Then I better make sure I do it as town too.;)
They hate us cause they ain't us.
Roles
Town
princess MDenham (Jackie Chan)
progressive joat with last will Maokun (Monkey D. Luffey)
supersaint EtR (Tyrion Lannister)
Innocent children ThePuppetMaster (Puppet Master)
odd night cop Cyan (Smoke Monster)
jailer Rhand (Chuck Norris)
VT Caex Kothar (Garrus Vakarian)
VT Taredas (Rika Furude)
VT Prophylaxis (TripleX)
VT Atheist God (Bracken)
VT desCoures (Makishima Shougo)
Scum
watcher Emocakes (The Doctor)
rolecop Fadeblue (Darkwing Duck)
untargetable Voxxicus (James Bond)
goon Archmage Eternal (Wolverine)
Setup
As noticed by most the Artifacts have an inane pro-town quality and required a setup that favored the scum, the town is low on night actions and has more passives to help balance the big drawback of the Princess. The watcher was not very effective against the town and was there mostly as a way for the scum to hunt the CL. The untargetable also was added to prevent an easy CL win.
My mistakes
I made a lot of mistakes in this game, first the initial Role PM mistake that Seppel took advantage in a underhanded way (trying to confirm a townie), it greatly disappointed me and I expected more from him. Then the Artifacts wording that have been less than stellar, ending in Taredas misplay that I certainly have blame for not anticipating the confusing wording. The last one that I remember was not noticing the nefarious interaction between the suicide rule(that was also heavily disliked) and the Princess role. I take all responsibility from the mistakes here and have learned a lot from them. I'm kinda sad some players think this game was a big failure and while certainly some bad things happened and probably overshadowed the good parts I still like to think most players enjoyed the game.
What worked
I think players enjoyed the "choose your role" gimmick and I have received some compliments about the scenes and stuff, unfortunately I cannot receive the credit for this because mostly of the writing were done by DYH (thanks buddy!) and the players themselves. I think the artifacts also worked as expected, give the players a head start to conversation and another puzzle characteristic that I think mafia players usually enjoy thinking about, mostly of them were not powerful but required lots of thinking by their owners to be of any use, and this was on purpose, I want this to be a game of mafia and not a game about artifacts so see them fading into obscurity as the game progressed, I think I accomplished that.
Players
It's funny that when I rolled the teams I though to myself "geez, this mafia has no chance, all the best players are in the town". Cyan, Seppel, Taredas, Caex, Rhand, dC, Eron, Pinky are all players that I know are very capable. ThePuppetMaster also looked like a vet, but I had no idea who he was, the scum team thinks it's AI, and I thought I was Dragonmaster for a while but I don't know, and maybe never will...
Voxx I knew is a good townie but I've never seen he play as scum so I had no idea how good he would be. Fade I know is a vet and I expected him to lead the scum.
In the end what has happened were town mistakes after mistakes. From the top of my head.
*PB blindly firing without a claim first.
*Taredas misreading his role PM and activating Rhand's artifact. Yes this is a mistake because he failed to understand his role, AG had a similar Artifact and had the hunch to clarify with me if "reveal" was the same of "activate".
*Cyan revealing his guilty verdict without the town finishing artifact coordination. Yes this is a mistake because at that point the suicide rule was a known thing.
*Mdehan suiciding in a most negative fashion. That was kinda the nail in the coffin of the town, the morale just crumbled at that point.
*ThePuppetMaster abrasive playstyle was not necessary, he even trash talked people he though were town, how this achieves anything?
In the end the town has not played well and never had a chance, all their reads were mostly wrong all the time. I didn't like how the mafia played either, Emo and AE were both non-entities for most of the game and lurked into an easy victory. Emo's last gambit was kinda botched but somehow it still worked, certainly not because of the execution but more because the town was so fed up at that point and Proph was an easy mislynch.
Townies
@Proph Sorry but you played badly buddy, it didn't help that Fade set you up from the get go but you never second guessed Voxx when it was apparent he was scum at the last minute. I quite liked you last day defense but it was just too late to have an impact, even if the town had lynched Emo first I still think you would've been lynched before Voxx.
Rhand, Caex, Mao didn't live to my expectations, Mao performance was particularly egregious since he replaced in as Seppel (considered town by all) and STILL managed to get lynched after doing nothing for the whole time. Eron and Cyan did what were expected from their roles. dC was not particularly good but still managed to eat a NK as a VT so that was good. Taredas is a strange one, he was wrong about everything, yet he was still feared by the scum and a hard worker. I think if he was given one more day he would both discover the scumteam and lynch them by himself, even so I can't give a MVP for a player so very wrong at majority of the time.
Town MVP goes to Atheist God. "but why DRey? What AG did in this game?" Well, differently from the rest of the town, AG was the one with mostly correct reads all the time, he pushed for the scum, he asked good questions and posted solid, yet confusing cases. The real problem with AG is that he has no convincing powers, his posts are often hard to grasp and don't convince anyone but he had the correct ideas. He just need to work on presentation.
Scum
AE is AE, enough said. I disliked Emo play and found him very scummy but he still managed to reach to the end game, and there's no argument against results, considering this was his second scum game it was a good performance that didn't doom his team. Fade was excellent and his insights in the scumchat were really good, he didn't do anything scummy and had not Cyan been the cop (and firing at him just because he's Fade and not because he found he scummy) he would probably endgamed, his suicide also was a correct move that greatly helped his team, unfortunately I cannot give him the MVP because he played for so little but he's certainly a honorable mention.
Scum MVP goes to Voxx, he started shy and didn't do anything for the first Day or so, but he shone very brightly at the mid game and take the mantle from Fade with spades. In the end he dropped the ball as noticed by some players but at that point the game was effectively over and the scum handily won.
Thanks for playing and hope to see you again. Next time it will certainly be better.
Mythic rarity is not destroying the game. People whine too much for no good reason. Magic is more popular than ever, so keep calm, brew some decks and play some damn cards.
I think that kind of attitude is really what led MDenham to suicide. Not justifying it, but I can definitely see the reasoning. He replaced in to a tough spot, did his best to give reads, and no matter what he gets met with "Uh uh no way, you're scum". Taredas, Cyan and a few others weren't even really listening, and found ways to twist whatever he said into scumtells.
Frankly (and maybe this is newbishness speaking), I was amazed that people were willing to lynch Pinky without the vanillafier first. I could see not believing the claim, but those who were pushing for the lynch before seeing if there was a way to counteract the drawback surprised me.
But yeah, Pinky's actions were pretty horrible as town. Dug a huge hole... Sometimes one person can really mess up a game. Sorry to everyone who didnt enjoy playing, but it was a fun read.
Club Flamingo Wins: 1!
In fact there's an explanation for that behavior, in MTGS there's some universal "tells" that people pass forward like a bible. One of those is that "fencesitting is scummy" townie cannot have "doubts" in their reads or beliefs, the thing is: every townie has doubt, all the time, it's inherent because they have little information about the setup, they can only speculate. I know I'm always in doubt but I learned to always express myself in certainty, not because I'm really certain of stuff but because it's considered less scummy.
Mythic rarity is not destroying the game. People whine too much for no good reason. Magic is more popular than ever, so keep calm, brew some decks and play some damn cards.
Good luck getting reputable players to sign up for another one of your games any time soon.
Unrelatedly, the day that people start getting a pass on things like fencesitting is the day that entire scum teams commit to a 'do nothing but lurk' strategy and win through it. Bad playstyles have to be punished as much as scummy play does.
Mythic rarity is not destroying the game. People whine too much for no good reason. Magic is more popular than ever, so keep calm, brew some decks and play some damn cards.