My terrible play for this game stemmed from the fact that I had no idea if my role (slightly weakened cop) and Karn's claimed role (which could probably only catch a piece of the scumteam) and AI's (giving out a possible cop-shot) could coexist. Plus the fact that no one would know I was a cop when I died, I had to decide to trust Karn or CC him on too little information and made the wrong choice.
I also forgot that AE and Karn had revealed their guilds on day 2, and should have copped karn, but instead copped TK because I thought he was the only player with a claimed guild.
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I'll bet you wish you had a non-unglued/unhinged card that shared your first name.
This was a very fun game, Meg; very well put-together. To answer a few of your questions, I appreciated the shorter deadlines as scum, but would have felt constrained and frustrated as town. And the no-reveal was definitely an advantage for us, a strong one...I just don't know how strong.
I was pretty miffed at Karn. I felt like he was being lazy D2 and obv-tunneling on AI (even if AI made some questionable posts at the end of D1), and Plum rightfully picked up on it. If Karn hadn't tunneled into having to claim investigative on AI, we would have kept the Inventor, which had a lot of benefit. Still, Karn played it out well from that point, and ultimately brought us to where we needed to be.
Dagaen hitting a power role N1 when I didn't succeed on the Plum kill was fortuitous. I feel good about taking out Hunger when we did, too. I feel bad for those early roles (AI included) that they didn't get to play more.
And peeps. Plum has proven that he knows his reads. Maybe he needs some work on the persuading aspects, but he did a good job mangling Karn's rep, and I was really surprised that no one listened. Had I been town, I think I would have been swayed. Plum deserves some recognition.
My biggest regret was not killing Rhand sooner. He knew I was scum, but I don't think he could ever quantify the reasons or solidify his arguments, but he still kept me on the hotseat.
I don't think I am ever going to sign up for a game without a deadline of a week or shorter ever again.
It wasn't the nobody listening to me thing, I'm kind of used to that. I would say my biggest town flaw is that I don't spend enough time trying to lay out arguments because I think people should be smart enough just to pick it up themselves. Having a super read on somebody and having nobody listen has happened before.
What I haven't dealt with before and was incredibly frustrating was people being completely inactive as town, which lets people be completely inactive as scum. I was going to point out specific people but I don't think its people, I think its the format of games here. This led to the agony of people ignoring Karn's obvious scummyness Over the course of a month
I still hold that I think the people who play mafia on mtgsalvation are better at mafia then most places I have seen, but the combination of ridiculously long deadlines, majority lynches, allowing people to be in more then 2 games at a time, and not replacing people unless they are inactive for weeks, leads to a culture where mafia can get away with basically doing nothing the entire game (Cantrip) because you have town who do it to. None of those characteristics are bad on their own (if you had only people who were in one game who were force replaced if they were gone for 48 hours without posting you don't need a deadline. I guarantee it.) The combination of those factors just creates huge issues. You can't find replacements because everybody is already playing in multiple games. Even if you find someone they are already attention split so they hardly focus on the game they are coming in to.
I really really want to play with you guys again. But I'm not signing up for another game unless it has some serious restrictions placed on it.
Like a prod after 3 days is almost unfathomable. Low activity while you are on vacation? Fine. very low activity while you are on vacation for a week? Maybe. Consider replacing out. But if you don't post for 3 days for no reason, or only post once to avoid consequences you need to get out of the game. Voluntarily, forced, whatever. you are making the game worse by doing it.
This applies mainly to towns, but once that happens scum also have to post more to avoid being lynched
Well, I think the set-up was fine. The no-reveal aspect hurt a lot, which is something you can have, but having a somewhat misleading reveal on top was a bit worse. That was not what lost it ultimately. Too many Town people just letting the game slide was it, as Plum says. I won't claim I would have "got it" either had I lived. I'm pretty sure I'm still gunning for Cyouni the next day due to the afore-mentioned sliding.
I am surprised how many people seemed to be completely unable to understand why Karn was a suspect. There was just never any kind of serious momentum at all towards him. Not just when he first claimed and it made no sense, but later when it really made no sense. I think his best play was not his weird claim of investigating AI and messing up AI's abilities, but when he also said he was "motivated" that same night and had another read. That seemed too strange to not be true, even though it wasn't, and that helped to account for one of the "unknown" Town roles that were dead.
Also don't get why people thought Plum was scummy at all. I feel at least slightly vindicated in that read. Had he been Mafia I might just have quit this game forever. Cantrip I thought was fine, and I was only really on him via process of elimination.
Anyway, good game.
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Quote from Bateleur »
Ambush Krotiq makes me laugh so much. I keep rereading the card and it keeps not having Flash. In what sense is this an ambush again? I just have visions of this huge Krotiq poorly concealed in some bushes, feeling slightly sad that his carefully planned ambushes never seem to work.
I entirely gave up on the town winning when Dagaen won and no one noticed how a hitman and an unlimited vig were supposedly in the same game. Karn gave the town such a big chance to save themselves from my mistake of not CCing him when he chose to call me a vig. Only Rhand paid any attention to it, and even then only to mention one of many reasons it didn't make sense.
I find it funny that one bad choice was probably the difference between making myself LVP with a town loss, and MVP with town crushing the scum team. Had I CCed Karn, I'd have looked like I allowed him to bus his buddy only to pull the rug from under him, appearing much smarter than I actually was. Instead, I got passive under the weight of my indecision, I died leaving Karn unCCed and the town proceeded to assume he was town when I should have prevented it. Interesting and mildly depressing.
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I'll bet you wish you had a non-unglued/unhinged card that shared your first name.
I had a really fun time on Day 2 just bull*****ting all sorts of stuff. I made a mistake or two, but not many people picked up on them, and those who did pick up on them weren't convincing enough to change the minds of the rest of the town.
About to read the spectator chat. I can imagine it's entertaining.
Spoiler: I like being appreciated, and people said nice things about me.
Maybe I will play in another game that doesn't have short deadlines, but I'm going to have a long talk with whoever is running it before the game starts about who is being let in the game and inactivity is going to be controlled. None of this oh wait I forgot to check for prods I should go do that stuff.
I entirely gave up on the town winning when Dagaen won and no one noticed how a hitman and an unlimited vig were supposedly in the same game. Karn gave the town such a big chance to save themselves from my mistake of not CCing him when he chose to call me a vig. Only Rhand paid any attention to it, and even then only to mention one of many reasons it didn't make sense.
I find it funny that one bad choice was probably the difference between making myself LVP with a town loss, and MVP with town crushing the scum team. Had I CCed Karn, I'd have looked like I allowed him to bus his buddy only to pull the rug from under him, appearing much smarter than I actually was. Instead, I got passive under the weight of my indecision, I died leaving Karn unCCed and the town proceeded to assume he was town when I should have prevented it. Interesting and mildly depressing.
I generally avoid these sort of arguments (Hitman? No unlimited vig obv) Because speculating on role names doesn't always work well. We didn't know the specifics of the hitman (Or maybe just I didn't if hitman is a standardized role here)
Plus using that argument probably would lead to you thinking Karn was town because there was no obvious investigative role, let alone the two or so you would expect.
Maybe I will play in another game that doesn't have short deadlines, but I'm going to have a long talk with whoever is running it before the game starts about who is being let in the game and inactivity is going to be controlled. None of this oh wait I forgot to check for prods I should go do that stuff.
When in rome...
But I definitely felt the itch this game too and I think I'll handle deadlines and activity differently in my next game.
I generally avoid these sort of arguments (Hitman? No unlimited vig obv) Because speculating on role names doesn't always work well. We didn't know the specifics of the hitman (Or maybe just I didn't if hitman is a standardized role here)
Note also that there was only ever one extra kill.
Oh, speaking of which, I'll post this here so we have it all in one place:
Night One Actions:
AI gifts Dagaen the Cop device -> RESOLVED
Sir Karn investigates Archmage Eternal -> will succeed
Cantrip kills masterplum -> will fail
Jarad does not revive SNL.
Hunger tracks KoolKoal (normal) -> Will succeed; Learns that KK targeted Axelrod.
dkingsland does not protect scarbo.
KoolKoal cops Axelrod and guesses Selesnya -> Will succeed.
Dagaen shoots Scarbo -> Will succeed.
---
Night Two actions
Sir Karn investigates KK -> Will succeed; Learns that KK is a Rakdos Cop
Cantrip kills Hunger -> Will succeed.
Hunger targets Dagaen (normal) -> Will succeed; learns that Dagaen does nothing.
Archmage Eternal does nothing.
KoolKoal cops TK-421 and guesses Golgari -> Will succeed.
Dagaen does nothing.
---
Night Three actions
Sir Karn investigates masterplum -> Will succeed. Learns that masterplum is an Izzet iconoclast.
Cantrip kills KoolKoal -> Will succeed.
Archmage Eternal revives Rhand (enhanced) -> Will succeed.
KoolKoal cops Cyouni and guesses Azorius -> Will succeed, learns that Cyouni is town.
Dagaen kills KoolKoal -> Will succeed.
---
Night Four actions
Sir Karn investigates dkingsland -> Will succeed. Learns that dkingsland is a Rakdos Bodyguard.
Cantrip kills Axelrod -> Will Succeed.
Dagaen kills dkingsland -> Will succeed.
---
Night Five actions
Sir Karn investigates TK -> Will succeed. Learns that TK is a Golgari vanilla.
Cantrip kills AE -> Will Succeed.
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Can we have Megiddo removed from the forum forever please?
i'm pretty sure i can find your ***** online within 3 minutes
Maybe I will play in another game that doesn't have short deadlines, but I'm going to have a long talk with whoever is running it before the game starts about who is being let in the game and inactivity is going to be controlled. None of this oh wait I forgot to check for prods I should go do that stuff.
When in rome...
But I definitely felt the itch this game too and I think I'll handle deadlines and activity differently in my next game.
I don't mind longer games. I mind backbreaking terrible bouts of inactivity.
The easiest way to fix that problem is shorter deadlines, but it isn't the only solution
2011: Best Mafia Performance (Individual) - Best Newcomer
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
My life has gone unexpectadly through too many big changes during this game.
I think I am very much to blame for this outcome. If I had put in the time I should have, I thnk this might have ended quite differently.
I was just about to figure it all out
I was playing a draft with some friends today when it clicked for me. By the time I took my phone to post the Karn vote, the game was already over.
Did you really figure it out in Winterfell? I didn't realise that
I really did. Sneaky's post was FINALLY giving me townvibes after that week-long browbeating, and your post was bad. Unfortunately I had left the game in Proph's hands and didn't step in. So ultimately I have to take responsibility.
But enough about other games. Let's talk about my game so that I feel important.
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Can we have Megiddo removed from the forum forever please?
i'm pretty sure i can find your ***** online within 3 minutes
Well I would think Cantrip was the best scum player.
Karn got kind of useless after he was done gloating over his AI bus, while I seemed to be the only player to ever suspect Cantrip (along with dkings in his wagon analysis).
I almost thought Cantrip was town when he cleared TK with his voting past.
That's what clicked for me today: I do such things as scum as well. Townclearing is a strong tool, and it was weird thT cantrip didn't follow that up with a vote on the only two that could possibly be scum from his pov if TK is no longer an option.
My life has gone unexpectadly through too many big changes during this game.
I think I am very much to blame for this outcome. If I had put in the time I should have, I thnk this might have ended quite differently.
I was just about to figure it all out
You had it figured out; you just went away from Cantrip.
I have to give scum MVP to Sir Karn for that gambit. I thought he was crazy, but through some absurd combination of luck and skill, he achieved victory. There were a lot of factors working for him, but he saw the opportunity and ran with it. Good job to him, even if we were flabbergasted that it worked. I think that Cantrip played well also—as Prophylaxis said in the spec chat, this was the best scum play from Cantrip basically ever. However, the direction of the game was definitely driven by Karn's gambit, so he deserves that recognition.
Town MVP is more difficult. My first inclination is masterplum, since he was the "most right" townie and was fighting to get Karn lynched pretty much the whole game. After reviewing the playerlist... I really don't have any alternatives. So there we go.
I would also like to mention Dagaen. He was universally townread, even by the scum (who knew that his role existed!) and he just silently plugged along, taking advantage of the town spilling their guild claims out there. Scarbo's slip was the most egregious (and unfortunately played directly into Dagaen's plan), but they just kept coming. This was a well-deserved win for him.
I do not find LVP awards to be sporting and I do not award them.
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Can we have Megiddo removed from the forum forever please?
i'm pretty sure i can find your ***** online within 3 minutes
2011: Best Mafia Performance (Individual) - Best Newcomer
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
2011: Best Mafia Performance (Individual) - Best Newcomer
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
My life has gone unexpectadly through too many big changes during this game.
I think I am very much to blame for this outcome. If I had put in the time I should have, I thnk this might have ended quite differently.
I was just about to figure it all out
If you were being more active/dedicated to this game, you would have been NKed over someone like Axel or AE. We didn't bother though even after you were confirmed town since you weren't around much.
Quote from Megiddo »
I am not looking forward to karn's ego if he wins this though.
Eh. I almost got rekt a few times since I had a couple of sloppy moments. Had I not had those little inconsistencies and had actually thought through like Days ahead of time before I did things then I would have a big ego, but I was on the edge of getting run up a few times, so I know my play wasn't stellar.
But I had a fun time and that's what I was really going for when I did decide to actually claim Cop on Day 2. I was laughing pretty hard when I made some of those posts.
When I opened the third Day by saying I lied - then when I later admitted I rolecopped KK, I was really scared KK was going to call bull***** on me, since that was a pretty bad situation for me.
I took so many risks this game - claiming cop blind, claiming I got motivated, claiming KK was a weird Vig (which by the way I knew I had to say something that was obvtown since I town cleared KK, but wasn't investigative), etc.
Big thanks to this game being limited-reveal, and the fact that KK didn't flip "Town Cop". Also thanks to AI. That self-hammer was such a relief - despite him hoping in the Spec Thread that I would fail
My life has gone unexpectadly through too many big changes during this game.
I think I am very much to blame for this outcome. If I had put in the time I should have, I thnk this might have ended quite differently.
I was just about to figure it all out
I also take blame in this. Twice I had family vacations and thought I'd be able to keep up with the game so didn't V/LA. Twice I got prodded -_-. Now I know better.
Megiddo #32
this is my customary "wtf are u doing tk" post.
Megiddo #107
have I complained about TK yet
If you find yourself thinking the same as megs, you know which side I'm on. If I knew what I was doing, I'd be scum (and also dead really fast)!
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She wants a ride on the pony, dude.
Mafia Stats
Kill shot: BB
Issue with my shooting? Please visit my helpdesk and help me learn to aim!
Thank you for hosting, I really like the effort you put into flavor - roleplaying was a really good read and setup was just yummy! Jarad reanimating people? Trostani as a Selesnyan voice? Niv-Mizzet as a crazy inventor? Flavor was delicious.
Thanks. I don't really like writing flavor for scenes (cf. Presidential), but I load my role/setup designs with it. My goal is to be immersive. When you get your role PM I want you to feel like I handed you a coherent package that speaks to the character and makes you excited to play the game as that character. Obviously that doesn't always happen (mostly in the case of vanillas, but it's hard to make every single role a home run), but that is what I strive to do.
Regarding flavor scenes, I find that there's a huge disconnect between the game of mafia itself and the flavor of the games we layer on top of it, which mods solve in different ways. I started out trying too hard to integrate the gameplay with the story, which never feels right to me. Later on I ended up about-facing to do what I should have done from the start, which is providing a backstory running in parallel. Dagaen's win provided me with both a good launching point for that as well as the motivation to do so. I ended up planting the seeds for Gatecrash, but due to my late start that was about all I was able to get done.
I'll actually try and map out a general story arc for Gatecrash before that gets run (which, unless it materializes as an FTQ, won't be for a very long time) so that we have some more entertainment provided.
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Can we have Megiddo removed from the forum forever please?
i'm pretty sure i can find your ***** online within 3 minutes
Oh, I want to talk about individual role designs, since I think it will be good discussion and at bare minimum useful for anybody who wants to talk theory.
Niv-Mizzet: My mistake here was holding myself too strictly to the "keep all roles fully believable as town" thing that was a holdover from the first version. My nod to the scum nature of this role was that I gave it the "dummy" device ability. As I mentioned I maybe should have given him a roleblocker device or something. I will note that he has two very powerful abilities; namely, the double vote and the increased lynch threshold. However, neither of these are useful outside of very specific circumstances that may not come up in the average game.
Jarad: I stripped this ability down to be as weak as possible, pretty much, as revivers are so powerful. Also note that between the original version and the final version of the setup I changed how the guildmasters worked. I wanted to make sure that they all had the ability to impact the setup, so I gave them a basic ability that upgraded when they targeted their own guild. So Izzet get to use their devices immediately and Jarad gets a temp-revive that upgrades to perma-revive. I like how this role turned out, and the way it was used in the game was not what I was expecting, but still very clever.
Isperia: This one went through some revisions. Note that this is actually supposed to be the "main" investigative role, but that the Gambler is actually stronger. More on that later. This role actually originally was a watcher that got upgraded to cop. I realized that this was poor design. I thought back to KosaKosa's role in Ataghan (which was a watcher/doc/cop) and the fact that you wanted to be targeting different people with the three modes. I'll quote myself from the review QT: "The cop ability is somewhat tacked on to Isperia's ability and won't come up much, which I'm fine with, but it's the exact same scenario as with Kosa's ability in Ataghan: You're targeting people who you think are town. Either it tells you they are town, in which case you say "duh," or you are punishing somebody for playing well." From there I switched it to being a tracker/cop, which is more natural. When the Gambler got added, this changed to its current form (effectively a cop if you happen to catch an Azorius scum committing the NK).
Rakdos: I was sad that this one didn't get to do much! This is one guild leader that rewards concealment of guilds, as you don't want him to die before the other Rakdos. One crazy version of this role allowed him to "bank" up to three vigilante shots that could be used simultaneously. Ultimate cool factor. I might revisit that role in a future setup (I think Proph had a similar role in MGM though, now that I think of it).
Trostani: I like the idea that killing the one scum mason shuts off the rest of them. Other than that, not much else to say. Unfortunately, if the town modgmes that guild masters are likely to be scum, this is the one that is most obviously a candidate.
One thing that I tried hard to do was to make each guild master care about or relate to its guild members in a different way. Niv wants to target his guild members to enhance his devices. Jarad can be used as an insurance policy or as a power play to double confirm people, like we saw. Isperia I envisioned as primarily being a tracker that would have occasional upside. Rakdos (true to form) just wants people to die. Finally, Trostani takes the Selesnyan approach and is just trying to be a happy family. I am proud of this aspect of the setup as I think I did a good job of making each guild not only be mechanically unique, but also carry over some of the flavor and overall feel from their "real-life" incarnations.
Palisade Giant: This is the weakest PR in the game if only because there's good odds that you'll be protecting scum, and there's no option to fix that. However, the fact that it's optional is a bit of a trap, since the correct play is almost always going to be to use it, especially early game. dkingsland fell into the trap this game and made me smile big.
Stealer of Secrets: In my eyes this is the worst role of the setup from a design perspective purely because it's the most obviously scum. I've been proven wrong. Note that as the "neutral" version intended for town or scum, it only got role names and not abilities.
Ash Zealot: Obviously these "minor" PRs were all trying to utilize the semi-random nature of the guilds to add some variability to the setup. This role could range from being immune to all town actions (as it was this game) or completely untouchable by scum depending on the guild distribution. I thought it was a fun wildcard to include.
Tavern Swindler: This was the Skullclamp of this setup: A late addition that wasn't balanced properly. I moved away from the original guild-switching version fairly quickly (after talking it through with Wheat and trying to figure out how Vraska would work with a guild switched out from under her, I said screw it and scrapped the role). I then settled on a guild guessing role, which seemed fun. I looked at making it a motivator but settled on a cop. Looking back, I would have preferred the motivator. Lesson learned: Don't put cops into your setup last minute. Also, don't call them something totally unrelated in a low-reveal setup.
Vraska: This went from SK to Hitman so that I could add more guild-relevant roles to the game. Obviously the flavor here is her ultimate, where she gets three Assassin tokens... I thought it was cute.
I also forgot that AE and Karn had revealed their guilds on day 2, and should have copped karn, but instead copped TK because I thought he was the only player with a claimed guild.
This game breaks the all-town winning Normals streak, so I'll be happy to run it through the rubric (unofficially)
I was pretty miffed at Karn. I felt like he was being lazy D2 and obv-tunneling on AI (even if AI made some questionable posts at the end of D1), and Plum rightfully picked up on it. If Karn hadn't tunneled into having to claim investigative on AI, we would have kept the Inventor, which had a lot of benefit. Still, Karn played it out well from that point, and ultimately brought us to where we needed to be.
Dagaen hitting a power role N1 when I didn't succeed on the Plum kill was fortuitous. I feel good about taking out Hunger when we did, too. I feel bad for those early roles (AI included) that they didn't get to play more.
And peeps. Plum has proven that he knows his reads. Maybe he needs some work on the persuading aspects, but he did a good job mangling Karn's rep, and I was really surprised that no one listened. Had I been town, I think I would have been swayed. Plum deserves some recognition.
My biggest regret was not killing Rhand sooner. He knew I was scum, but I don't think he could ever quantify the reasons or solidify his arguments, but he still kept me on the hotseat.
Thanks to all for a fun game.
Should've moved faster :/
It wasn't the nobody listening to me thing, I'm kind of used to that. I would say my biggest town flaw is that I don't spend enough time trying to lay out arguments because I think people should be smart enough just to pick it up themselves. Having a super read on somebody and having nobody listen has happened before.
What I haven't dealt with before and was incredibly frustrating was people being completely inactive as town, which lets people be completely inactive as scum. I was going to point out specific people but I don't think its people, I think its the format of games here. This led to the agony of people ignoring Karn's obvious scummyness Over the course of a month
I still hold that I think the people who play mafia on mtgsalvation are better at mafia then most places I have seen, but the combination of ridiculously long deadlines, majority lynches, allowing people to be in more then 2 games at a time, and not replacing people unless they are inactive for weeks, leads to a culture where mafia can get away with basically doing nothing the entire game (Cantrip) because you have town who do it to. None of those characteristics are bad on their own (if you had only people who were in one game who were force replaced if they were gone for 48 hours without posting you don't need a deadline. I guarantee it.) The combination of those factors just creates huge issues. You can't find replacements because everybody is already playing in multiple games. Even if you find someone they are already attention split so they hardly focus on the game they are coming in to.
I really really want to play with you guys again. But I'm not signing up for another game unless it has some serious restrictions placed on it.
This applies mainly to towns, but once that happens scum also have to post more to avoid being lynched
I am surprised how many people seemed to be completely unable to understand why Karn was a suspect. There was just never any kind of serious momentum at all towards him. Not just when he first claimed and it made no sense, but later when it really made no sense. I think his best play was not his weird claim of investigating AI and messing up AI's abilities, but when he also said he was "motivated" that same night and had another read. That seemed too strange to not be true, even though it wasn't, and that helped to account for one of the "unknown" Town roles that were dead.
Also don't get why people thought Plum was scummy at all. I feel at least slightly vindicated in that read. Had he been Mafia I might just have quit this game forever. Cantrip I thought was fine, and I was only really on him via process of elimination.
Anyway, good game.
I find it funny that one bad choice was probably the difference between making myself LVP with a town loss, and MVP with town crushing the scum team. Had I CCed Karn, I'd have looked like I allowed him to bus his buddy only to pull the rug from under him, appearing much smarter than I actually was. Instead, I got passive under the weight of my indecision, I died leaving Karn unCCed and the town proceeded to assume he was town when I should have prevented it. Interesting and mildly depressing.
About to read the spectator chat. I can imagine it's entertaining.
Hunger: If it wasn't for plum, I would say this is the worst collective town Day I have ever seen.
Best quote ever
I read the spectator chat.
Spoiler: I like being appreciated, and people said nice things about me.
Maybe I will play in another game that doesn't have short deadlines, but I'm going to have a long talk with whoever is running it before the game starts about who is being let in the game and inactivity is going to be controlled. None of this oh wait I forgot to check for prods I should go do that stuff.
I generally avoid these sort of arguments (Hitman? No unlimited vig obv) Because speculating on role names doesn't always work well. We didn't know the specifics of the hitman (Or maybe just I didn't if hitman is a standardized role here)
Plus using that argument probably would lead to you thinking Karn was town because there was no obvious investigative role, let alone the two or so you would expect.
I just didn't really bother with that meta
Club Flamingo Wins: 1!
But I definitely felt the itch this game too and I think I'll handle deadlines and activity differently in my next game.
Note also that there was only ever one extra kill.
Oh, speaking of which, I'll post this here so we have it all in one place:
Night One Actions:
AI gifts Dagaen the Cop device -> RESOLVED
Sir Karn investigates Archmage Eternal -> will succeed
Cantrip kills masterplum -> will fail
Jarad does not revive SNL.
Hunger tracks KoolKoal (normal) -> Will succeed; Learns that KK targeted Axelrod.
dkingsland does not protect scarbo.
KoolKoal cops Axelrod and guesses Selesnya -> Will succeed.
Dagaen shoots Scarbo -> Will succeed.
---
Night Two actions
Sir Karn investigates KK -> Will succeed; Learns that KK is a Rakdos Cop
Cantrip kills Hunger -> Will succeed.
Hunger targets Dagaen (normal) -> Will succeed; learns that Dagaen does nothing.
Archmage Eternal does nothing.
KoolKoal cops TK-421 and guesses Golgari -> Will succeed.
Dagaen does nothing.
---
Night Three actions
Sir Karn investigates masterplum -> Will succeed. Learns that masterplum is an Izzet iconoclast.
Cantrip kills KoolKoal -> Will succeed.
Archmage Eternal revives Rhand (enhanced) -> Will succeed.
KoolKoal cops Cyouni and guesses Azorius -> Will succeed, learns that Cyouni is town.
Dagaen kills KoolKoal -> Will succeed.
---
Night Four actions
Sir Karn investigates dkingsland -> Will succeed. Learns that dkingsland is a Rakdos Bodyguard.
Cantrip kills Axelrod -> Will Succeed.
Dagaen kills dkingsland -> Will succeed.
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Night Five actions
Sir Karn investigates TK -> Will succeed. Learns that TK is a Golgari vanilla.
Cantrip kills AE -> Will Succeed.
I don't mind longer games. I mind backbreaking terrible bouts of inactivity.
The easiest way to fix that problem is shorter deadlines, but it isn't the only solution
When Gatecrash runs (sometime in 2016 based on the specialty queue), we'll make it a good one.
{мы, тьма}
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
Get pumped. This setup was but a small taste of the potential of the Guilds.
FTQ FTQ FTQ
I think I am very much to blame for this outcome. If I had put in the time I should have, I thnk this might have ended quite differently.
I was just about to figure it all out
Town Win % = 75%
Mafia Win % = 75%
Overall Win % = 75%
Completed Game Log
2014: Best Mafia Performance (Group)
2014: Most Improved Player
2014: Best Town Player
2014: Best Overall Player
Did you really figure it out in Winterfell? I didn't realise that
I really did. Sneaky's post was FINALLY giving me townvibes after that week-long browbeating, and your post was bad. Unfortunately I had left the game in Proph's hands and didn't step in. So ultimately I have to take responsibility.
But enough about other games. Let's talk about my game so that I feel important.
Karn got kind of useless after he was done gloating over his AI bus, while I seemed to be the only player to ever suspect Cantrip (along with dkings in his wagon analysis).
I almost thought Cantrip was town when he cleared TK with his voting past.
That's what clicked for me today: I do such things as scum as well. Townclearing is a strong tool, and it was weird thT cantrip didn't follow that up with a vote on the only two that could possibly be scum from his pov if TK is no longer an option.
But well... Too late for that now.
You had it figured out; you just went away from Cantrip.
Club Flamingo Wins: 1!
I have to give scum MVP to Sir Karn for that gambit. I thought he was crazy, but through some absurd combination of luck and skill, he achieved victory. There were a lot of factors working for him, but he saw the opportunity and ran with it. Good job to him, even if we were flabbergasted that it worked. I think that Cantrip played well also—as Prophylaxis said in the spec chat, this was the best scum play from Cantrip basically ever. However, the direction of the game was definitely driven by Karn's gambit, so he deserves that recognition.
Town MVP is more difficult. My first inclination is masterplum, since he was the "most right" townie and was fighting to get Karn lynched pretty much the whole game. After reviewing the playerlist... I really don't have any alternatives. So there we go.
I would also like to mention Dagaen. He was universally townread, even by the scum (who knew that his role existed!) and he just silently plugged along, taking advantage of the town spilling their guild claims out there. Scarbo's slip was the most egregious (and unfortunately played directly into Dagaen's plan), but they just kept coming. This was a well-deserved win for him.
I do not find LVP awards to be sporting and I do not award them.
plz.
Since we still have yet to see The Third River.
*Pointed glance at Meg & AI*
{мы, тьма}
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
*passes buck to AI*
Vote FTQ
Draft my cube! (630 cards)
{мы, тьма}
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
Either way, we're all gonna burn
Looking forward to your next game.
If you were being more active/dedicated to this game, you would have been NKed over someone like Axel or AE. We didn't bother though even after you were confirmed town since you weren't around much.
Eh. I almost got rekt a few times since I had a couple of sloppy moments. Had I not had those little inconsistencies and had actually thought through like Days ahead of time before I did things then I would have a big ego, but I was on the edge of getting run up a few times, so I know my play wasn't stellar.
But I had a fun time and that's what I was really going for when I did decide to actually claim Cop on Day 2. I was laughing pretty hard when I made some of those posts.
When I opened the third Day by saying I lied - then when I later admitted I rolecopped KK, I was really scared KK was going to call bull***** on me, since that was a pretty bad situation for me.
I took so many risks this game - claiming cop blind, claiming I got motivated, claiming KK was a weird Vig (which by the way I knew I had to say something that was obvtown since I town cleared KK, but wasn't investigative), etc.
Big thanks to this game being limited-reveal, and the fact that KK didn't flip "Town Cop". Also thanks to AI. That self-hammer was such a relief - despite him hoping in the Spec Thread that I would fail
Also:
I resent these statements greatly.
Sir Karn: Most Reckless Player
AsianInvasion: Best Sport
GG town.
I also take blame in this. Twice I had family vacations and thought I'd be able to keep up with the game so didn't V/LA. Twice I got prodded -_-. Now I know better.
If you find yourself thinking the same as megs, you know which side I'm on. If I knew what I was doing, I'd be scum (and also dead really fast)!
Mafia Stats
Kill shot: BB
Issue with my shooting? Please visit my helpdesk and help me learn to aim!
Regarding flavor scenes, I find that there's a huge disconnect between the game of mafia itself and the flavor of the games we layer on top of it, which mods solve in different ways. I started out trying too hard to integrate the gameplay with the story, which never feels right to me. Later on I ended up about-facing to do what I should have done from the start, which is providing a backstory running in parallel. Dagaen's win provided me with both a good launching point for that as well as the motivation to do so. I ended up planting the seeds for Gatecrash, but due to my late start that was about all I was able to get done.
I'll actually try and map out a general story arc for Gatecrash before that gets run (which, unless it materializes as an FTQ, won't be for a very long time) so that we have some more entertainment provided.
HODOR HODOR HODOR
Draft my cube! (630 cards)
Niv-Mizzet: My mistake here was holding myself too strictly to the "keep all roles fully believable as town" thing that was a holdover from the first version. My nod to the scum nature of this role was that I gave it the "dummy" device ability. As I mentioned I maybe should have given him a roleblocker device or something. I will note that he has two very powerful abilities; namely, the double vote and the increased lynch threshold. However, neither of these are useful outside of very specific circumstances that may not come up in the average game.
Jarad: I stripped this ability down to be as weak as possible, pretty much, as revivers are so powerful. Also note that between the original version and the final version of the setup I changed how the guildmasters worked. I wanted to make sure that they all had the ability to impact the setup, so I gave them a basic ability that upgraded when they targeted their own guild. So Izzet get to use their devices immediately and Jarad gets a temp-revive that upgrades to perma-revive. I like how this role turned out, and the way it was used in the game was not what I was expecting, but still very clever.
Isperia: This one went through some revisions. Note that this is actually supposed to be the "main" investigative role, but that the Gambler is actually stronger. More on that later. This role actually originally was a watcher that got upgraded to cop. I realized that this was poor design. I thought back to KosaKosa's role in Ataghan (which was a watcher/doc/cop) and the fact that you wanted to be targeting different people with the three modes. I'll quote myself from the review QT: "The cop ability is somewhat tacked on to Isperia's ability and won't come up much, which I'm fine with, but it's the exact same scenario as with Kosa's ability in Ataghan: You're targeting people who you think are town. Either it tells you they are town, in which case you say "duh," or you are punishing somebody for playing well." From there I switched it to being a tracker/cop, which is more natural. When the Gambler got added, this changed to its current form (effectively a cop if you happen to catch an Azorius scum committing the NK).
Rakdos: I was sad that this one didn't get to do much! This is one guild leader that rewards concealment of guilds, as you don't want him to die before the other Rakdos. One crazy version of this role allowed him to "bank" up to three vigilante shots that could be used simultaneously. Ultimate cool factor. I might revisit that role in a future setup (I think Proph had a similar role in MGM though, now that I think of it).
Trostani: I like the idea that killing the one scum mason shuts off the rest of them. Other than that, not much else to say. Unfortunately, if the town modgmes that guild masters are likely to be scum, this is the one that is most obviously a candidate.
One thing that I tried hard to do was to make each guild master care about or relate to its guild members in a different way. Niv wants to target his guild members to enhance his devices. Jarad can be used as an insurance policy or as a power play to double confirm people, like we saw. Isperia I envisioned as primarily being a tracker that would have occasional upside. Rakdos (true to form) just wants people to die. Finally, Trostani takes the Selesnyan approach and is just trying to be a happy family. I am proud of this aspect of the setup as I think I did a good job of making each guild not only be mechanically unique, but also carry over some of the flavor and overall feel from their "real-life" incarnations.
Palisade Giant: This is the weakest PR in the game if only because there's good odds that you'll be protecting scum, and there's no option to fix that. However, the fact that it's optional is a bit of a trap, since the correct play is almost always going to be to use it, especially early game. dkingsland fell into the trap this game and made me smile big.
Stealer of Secrets: In my eyes this is the worst role of the setup from a design perspective purely because it's the most obviously scum. I've been proven wrong. Note that as the "neutral" version intended for town or scum, it only got role names and not abilities.
Ash Zealot: Obviously these "minor" PRs were all trying to utilize the semi-random nature of the guilds to add some variability to the setup. This role could range from being immune to all town actions (as it was this game) or completely untouchable by scum depending on the guild distribution. I thought it was a fun wildcard to include.
Tavern Swindler: This was the Skullclamp of this setup: A late addition that wasn't balanced properly. I moved away from the original guild-switching version fairly quickly (after talking it through with Wheat and trying to figure out how Vraska would work with a guild switched out from under her, I said screw it and scrapped the role). I then settled on a guild guessing role, which seemed fun. I looked at making it a motivator but settled on a cop. Looking back, I would have preferred the motivator. Lesson learned: Don't put cops into your setup last minute. Also, don't call them something totally unrelated in a low-reveal setup.
Vraska: This went from SK to Hitman so that I could add more guild-relevant roles to the game. Obviously the flavor here is her ultimate, where she gets three Assassin tokens... I thought it was cute.