SHIELD vs. HYDRA Mafia - Conclusion

[mediumsnowman]

ANYONE CAN POST IN THIS THREAD, NOT JUST PLAYERS!

Night fell, and the carrier was silent.

Margaret Corrigan (Lady K) stood in the darkened conference room, ready to meet her fate.

She turned to face her assailant, a gun in hand.

“I was beginning to think you weren’t coming.”

“Hail HYDRA!”

*KERPOW!*

She kicked the gun from their hand!

“Now let’s find out who you really are.”

She ripped off the mask to reveal Cecilia Reed (Darkdragon)!

“Yep, I was the vigilante! And I would of gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for you meddling kids and your dumb host!”

What Margaret didn’t know, was that Cecilia always carried a spare gun for just such an occasion.

*BANG!*

The lights came on, and the Margaret went down in a bloody heap. “Hail HYDRA…”

The town block arrived, led by Daniel Bartell (mostlytechnic), with Walter Williams (jluck) in chains.

“Nice work Cecilia! We’re pretty sure Margaret was the last scum.”

“I’m sure she was. Why didn’t you execute Walter like we voted on?”

“Well, hosty forgot all about the day conclusion, so we figured it was better to just lock him up and deal with him in the regular conclusion!”

Suddenly, the director in question appeared!

“Nice work! I see you caught Ms. Corrigan. She was a HYDRA Agent all right. Now, let’s deal with Walter.”

“Any last words Walter?”

“Yes! Actually quite a few! First of all, @$ you scum team! You screwed me over with that recruit action! I was so close to winning anyways! Secondly, I don’t think this game was properly balan-“

*BANG*

“Yeesh. That’s enough of that.”

Walter Williams (jluck) joined his teammate in the afterlife.

Nick spoke up. “Walter was a HYDRA Agent as well! Nice work!”

Congratulations to the winners, SHIELD, and especially to the survivors, Piratedave84, mostlytechnic, Darkdragon, Tariq j, JackJonespaw, and CallMePie!

The winners filed out, and Director Fury was left alone with his thoughts.

But he wasn’t quite as alone as he thought…

"Hey Nick!”

“Gaaah! Security breach! Spidey, how’d you get in here?!”

“That’s not important! What is important is that you just hosted a Marvel-themed mafia game with absolutely no superheroes whatsoever!”

“Well Spidey, all good things in time…”

Thanks for playing everyone! Writeboard links, list of roles, night actions, and some thoughts on the game are down below. You don’t have to read them if you don’t want to. I understand.

Scumboard: http://123.writeboard.com/4ctgjz6we0jitjlemvnnorww

Pass: sneakyhobbits

Deadboard: http://123.writeboard.com/1a3gb8zdab8mqrw38l783v9m

Pass: lolurded

Night Actions:

I have a spreadsheet, but it’s a mess. You don’t want to see it. Trust me. This is a lot easier.

Night 1:

DD kills Junior Shark

Tariq jails Dragonfire

Junior Shark gives fruit to Dragonfire

JJP tracks Tariq

Dave watches MT

MT checks JJP

CMP stays home

fhomess tracks MT

Forresto blocks Comrade Commander

Bob recruits CMP (failed)

Night 2:

DD kills Forresto

Tariq jails Dave

JJP tracks jluck

Dave watches fhomess (failed)

MT checks fhomess

CMP protects Dave

fhomess tracks MT

Bob recruits DD (failed)

Forresto blocks Dave

Night 3:

DD kills Dragonfire (killing Comrade Commander automatically)

Tariq jails Lady K

JJP tracks DD

Dave watches Umbra

MT checks Bob

CMP protects MT

Bob recruits jluck (success)

Night 4:

DD kills Umbra

Tariq jails Lady K

JJP tracks CMP (failed)

Dave watches MT

MT checks DD

CMP protects MT

jluck blocks JJP

Lady K kills DD (failed)

Night 5:

DD kills Lady K

I didn’t even bother to run/record the other ones once the block/protect actions came in and neither Lady K was protected nor DD blocked. Game over!

Roles:

Daniel Bartell, played by mostlytechnic – SHIELD Investigator

James Cunningham, played by Bob – HYDRA Killer

Eugene Lawson, played by Forresto – HYDRA Roleblocker

Jafar Masrani, played by JackJonespaw – SHIELD Tracker

Hailey Coleman, played by Comrade Commander – SHIELD Lover

Todd Castillo, played by Tariq j – SHIELD Jailkeeper

Jasper Heinz, played by PirateDave84 – SHIELD Watcher

Cecilia Reed, played by Darkdragon – SHIELD Vigilante

Jeffrey Brown, played by Dragonfire – SHIELD Lover

Walter Williams, played by jluck – Vanilla SHIELD Agent, converted to HYDRA Roleblocker on Night 3

Robert Thorn, played by Umbra-Manis – Vanilla SHIELD Agent

David Leffel, played by fhomess - HYDRA Tracker

Steven Schram, played by Khscarymovie4 – Vanilla SHIELD Agent

Alyssa Turner, played by CallMePie – SHIELD Bodyguard

Kinjobby O’Laughlin, played by Junior Shark – SHIELD Fruit Vendor

Margaret Corrigan, played by Lady K HYDRA Godfather

I don’t think anyone picked up on Kinjobby as a Fruit Vendor, as he got killed almost immediately. He gave DF the fruit on Night 1, not Tariq. Lady K asked me to give jluck fruit on Night 3 to cover the recruit action, which I did because I’m a pretty fun and reasonable guy.

Game thoughts:

Town rolled this one from Day 2 onwards, once Dave got conflicting tracker claims and DD killed Forresto. The slow recruit didn't do scum any favors either, and all they accomplished was screwing jluck over by converting him in the endgame. There was a lot of claiming really early, and I'm not entirely sure why. It worked out well though, with a solid town block operating and outing scum by Day 2. Scum pretty much had all the roles figured out once MT PM'd fhomess, but it was too late to do anything about it.

There was originally no watcher and Dave was another vanilla, but reviewing the setup right before game-start scum looked a bit OP, especially if they successfully recruited Night 1. With that in mind I made him a watcher instead. Unfortunately that may have ended up unbalancing the game in favor of town.

I can only assume there was a lot going on behind the scenes, as some of the later day threads were pretty dead when there was no cop result to go on.

The jailkeeper was designed to prevent broken setups like 'follow the cop' or overreliance on any one PR's result, and the bodyguard (essentially a weak doctor) was a safeguard in case the jailkeeper died early, so town didn't lose two of the 'holy trinity' of PR's in one blow.

Some player feedback is probably coming sooner rather than later. My apologies for the lateness of this thread - I experienced some technical difficulties, which are detailed in the C&D thread.

Edited April 4, 2016 by mediumsnowman

[jluck]

Thanks for hosting! You did well on your first time through, thanks for everyone who played too! And screw you scum for recruiting me

[Piratedave84]

So could scum kill or were they to win by numbers??

Never mind, read the roles.

[mediumsnowman]

So could scum kill or were they to win by numbers??

Never mind, read the roles.

Yeah, they could kill, just they couldn't kill and recruit on the same night. They tried to recruit the first three nights and neither of their kills went through the next two nights.

[Darkdragon]

Thanks for the game, I don't think it was unbalanced as much as the scum perhaps made some poor choices in trying to recruit instead of kill before they know who the PRs were.

[CMP]

Yeah, they could kill, just they couldn't kill and recruit on the same night. They tried to recruit the first three nights and neither of their kills went through the next two nights.

And I guess the main distinction is that they couldn't recruit roles.

Thanks for a fun game MS, I certainly could've been more active but I've been a bit busy as of late. I had a good time, thank you for inviting me to play.

[Tariq j]

Thanks for hosting Medium! It was stupid of me to claim early . That teaches me to read over posts properly, I didn't realize other members had claimed as well.

[Dragonfire]

Thanks for the game, it was great! Darkdragon, I'm still not sure why you killed me simply because I was blocked on N1, when there were multiple explanations for the scum's kill failing...

And the scum situation reminds me of Ragnarok 3, which unlike this game dragged on for days with a lone scum failing to recruit again and again...

[JackJonespaw]

Good work, everyone, especially the town block! I swear, I didn't trust PD until very late game. Once MT got in contact with me, I was very suspicious of everyone else.

[Rider Raider]

Well, that was fun to watch. Good work, town!

[mostlytechnic]

Thanks medium, it was a blast! Things were super confusing since there were SO many roles, and made SO much worse by the crazy scum trying to recruit instead of kill (and the vig killing the first couple nights!) We never did really trust DD being the vig, since I had to beg to get a claim and we couldn't figure out the lack of kills. But that's what makes it fun, the new twists and random crazy that happens each time. If the games ran as expected, they'd get boring.

And I think it was pretty good balance myself - what doomed the scum was the multiple failed recruits right off the bat. They didn't realize how low the odds were on a successful recruit since there were so many roles. In a more typical game (ie more vanilla) it would have swung hard their way since they'd be gaining numbers pretty quickly, and the lack of kills would have still be confusing to town.

DD - thanks for working with us even though we kept you pretty out of the loop. We just couldn't trust that you really were the vig with the low number of night kills. And I'm still curious about you killing the first couple nights. Worked out ok since you got forresto for us, but it's a risky play.

And there was definitely a real fear that the block had been infiltrated. I was going over and over everyone's claims, trying to see if there was anywhere someone could be lying. This last night, other than the kills, we were using the other roles to just cross-check and watch each other's actions trying to catch a scum in case we were wrong. But this game is good evidence of why we kill the vanillas and don't let them in the town block :)

jluck - that was a SUPER gutsy play at the end, offering yourself up as a vanilla to be lynched. Why didn't you stay quiet and try to hide another day?

One other thing that I was curious about in the block... Tariq and I kept secret that he was a jailkeeper. He claimed blocker to the group, so they thought he was just that. It meant though I had to be careful how we used his ability, since he blocked AND protected the target. So we couldn't have him block the person we were going to kill once we had DD involved. I also didn't share CMP's bodyguard claim for a while. So it's surprising to me that no one questioned the lack of protection roles, when there were SO MANY roles going on. People probably just assumed that kinjobby was the protector or something, but it still felt odd that no one brought it up.

Now to go read the scumboard and deadboard and see how much they were laughing at us...

[mostlytechnic]

Ok, so thoughts from reading the boards.

scum - brilliant idea recruiting night 1. Actually makes a ton of sense, since you were expecting most to be vanilla, or get a rolecop essentially if you failed. Makes a ton of sense. I'm just surprised that CMP and DD survived after you knew they were PRs - why not try to get them lynched or kill them?

LadyK - interesting that you were already plotting a lynch of me on day 1. Sucks that my townplay looks so scummy that you assume (correctly) that you could get me lynched reading further... dang. Guess I need to go reread day 1 and see what I was saying that's so scummy And thanks for not letting them block me night 1. Game probably would have been completely different if I'd failed night 1.

Pdave - why the claims on day 2 to people that weren't involved (ie ladyK?) I have to say, I never 100% trusted you. The way the whole thing went down, I spent much time over the rest of the game trying to figure out if you could possibly be scum and how to test you.

And yes, I sent out that big PM night 2, knowing that both scum and town would get it. I wasn't sure who was trustworthy, so I just outed pretty much everything I knew so that the info would survive (I was seriously afraid I'd be getting killed that night). So I decided it was worth the scum knowing so that the town knew too - since the scum would know most of the info anyway. The only thing the scum really learned was my role, where the town would learn a lot.

Gotta run, I'll read the other scum days and the dead board later...

[mostlytechnic]

Day 3 - bob, sorry I gave away that you were getting lynched by not asking for a claim from you. Oops! Coulda at least made it a bit more of a surprise for you. And your crazy werewolf claim was fun (and the fact that medium ran with it in the photos just about made me need some new pants...)

In the end, we really weren't sure where the scum was (we were expecting just 1) but I'd pretty much checked all the claims every way I could and could only come up with jluck or LadyK being the scum, so we figured take out both and be sure to get the scum.

[Khscarymovie4]

For my first mafia game I had a lot of fun. Can't wait to be in more mafia games. Thanks Medium for hosting!

[mostlytechnic]

On to the deadboard...

Sorry new guys, that you all died first. I think it's largely that people who have played together have "reads" on each other, so it's easier to mis-read the newbies and jump all over them. Plus often the newbies over-react to things. You all did pretty good, and I'm glad the scum team talked forresto down so he didn't overreact to his penalty votes. Can't wait for more games to get you involved in!

The whole fruit thing - I basically ignored that. I'm so used to the pictures having ZERO information (and the occasional prank role) that I didn't make any connection to the apple and recruiting and stuff. I didn't even think there necessarily was a real fruit-giver on night 1.

Yes, the early claims thing made my life easier. I didn't have to worry about having a mouthpiece or hiding my role.

One thing I'm definitely learning is to go re-read earlier days to figure out who the vig is.

Interesting discussion about whether the lovers were recruitable. Sounds like the scum were told they could recruit vanilla, which should have excluded the lovers. What would have happened if DF or CC was recruited? Get both of them? The other die? Or the lover-bond be broken? Or they're still lovers, but on opposite sides of the game? Any of those seems bad to me. IMHO, they should not be recruitable, and hosts need to be VERY careful how they word things since we nit pick every detail :)

Ah, you answered: "You wouldn’t have been told. Might have been a bit of a dickish move on my part though, since the lovers were confirmed to each other in the Role PM’s." I agree with DF - that would definitely be a dickish move.

bob - thanks for the warning that your next game will be wiki-proof :) I really like the idea BTW, make people think and evaluate everything. Also, intereesting that you'll ban PMs. I do agree, it seems like the games here start good and then get quiet as it moves to private discussions. Perhaps something though like a town-block board that can be used at night? I've seen mafia played where the scum also can only talk in private at night.

There's also interesting ways to change the vote system - like not being able to unvote (though that generally just leads to some sort of "fakevote" system and then everyone places real votes once it's settled, but is a big inconvenience to people who can't be online near the end of the day). I'd be good with most votes is lynched instead of having to have a majority. One thought - instead of no votes for the first 24 hours, what about MANDATORY votes in the first 24 and then people can change from there as the day goes on? Or everyone has to submit a night vote and that is the start of the day?

Yes, the game ended here since there were only 2 vanilla claims left and we could lynch one and vig the other.

bob, if you make me a neutral survivor that investigates as scum and has to survive till the end, I'll haunt you forever.

Thanks again medium - it was fun! And pretty well balanced except the scum got unlucky and over-used the recruit attempts.

[mediumsnowman]

Thanks guys- I had a blast too!

Bob's fake-claim was definitely a highlight of the game for me. It was so outlandish that it could only be true! Too bad the block saw right through it.

About the lovers- if they weren't recruitable, that would be a whopping 3/12 players that could be recruited. That's really low. They didn't try to recruit them though, so all's well that ends well.

[Umbra-Manis]

Woohoo!

The block's formation was a bit crazy, and I never did anything all that useful. Besides give medium two joke actions which ended up in the next day's story.

Was my death planned by the block, or was DD still acting separately at that point?

[fhomess]

I don't think the game was unbalanced, but it was pretty swingy. Swingy games typically happen when you have a large number of roles and if a few things combine to go one team's way, then it can become a rout. We made some poor choices as scum. It's kind of funny to look back on the scumboard and see how we basically had all the best choices on our list of options and we consistently chose something else. For example, killing MT early. Ironically, I think the scum would've been better off with less power... meaning if we hadn't had the recruit role, I bet the game would've been completely different. I don't think there was much hope for the scum by day 3.

There was a lot of talk about how Dave's early claim to folks in private was a poor play, but I'm beginning to come around to the idea that an early town claim isn't necessarily a bad thing. He put a lot of pressure on me to claim, and I took a gamble that with a watcher and investigative role, there would be no town tracker. Didn't work out, obviously. I'm really surprised it took the town block so long to trust Dave. I was clearly scum and had proven that we had a tracker claim. Dave's watcher claim should've been trusted from the moment there were two tracker claims. I think the town played things very well in terms of methodically going through those claims. I'm a little surprised that Tariq claimed early and that his claim was trusted. Jailkeeper is usually implemented as a scum role.

Anyway... very nice job to the town. You guys systematically confirmed each other and went about the business as needed. Well deserved victory.

[mostlytechnic]

Sorry Umbra - we told DD to kill you because you were vanilla. DD was going to kill LadyK, but we were blocking her so said to kill you instead. Oops :(

[Darkdragon]

I killed night 1 because I often don't survive past that point. The player seemed to be second choice on the votes so it made sense. I always killed who I thought was the most scum-like, I tried to bring up the idea with those in the town block that I was taling to at the time, my ideas seemed to be basically ignored so I did my best with what I had. I brought up the LadyK thing a couple days before and it was blown off by both PD and MT.

Umbra - I really argued against killing you. You didn't seem scum to me at all and the insistence on it was just one more thing that made me think MT had been converted. I did it because I was hoping they might actually work with me and stop keeping so much secrets, but they still didn't.

MT - you never begged me for a claim, you simply asked and I told you. You were expecting me to just come claim on my own with no other contact before? That would be a silly and scumlike thing to do IMO.

I really enjoyed that the scum put up such good defenses from being lynched, it's nice when people really try and don't give up. I wish the lynched and nearly lynched townies had bothered to defend themselves at all.

[Bob]

I had a lot of fun! Especially trying to save myself. I would've unvoted myself. I said most of my thoughts in the deadboard, but I believe PMs need to be curtailed in future games. I believe it's up to the host whether or not to ban them, but it makes the game much easier for the town if they can just all meet together, especially in smaller games.

bob, if you make me a neutral survivor that investigates as scum and has to survive till the end, I'll haunt you forever.

I can't anymore because I've revealed it, but perhaps someone else will have that role.

[jluck]

MT, I pushed for the vanilla lynch because, while dangerous, it was the only scenario that would possibly work. If I was lynched and lady k survived she'd be investigated as town. It was clear that I was going to die that day anyway so I really wanted to push that I was a townie early in the day, willing to die to win, and then shift the narrative to the block being infiltrated. It worked fairly well, but the odds were just too stacked. Honestly, I was happy with the attempt.

[mediumsnowman]

I think a PM-less game is near impossible for town to win- a better solution might be to ban them initially but have a role that can target players and activate a PM ability with others who have been targeted- like the Neighborizer.

On the topic of revealed roles, I think I told jluck in TCS if I ever hosted I would include a town-aligned jailkeeper. Luckily he didn't seem to remember.

[Lady K]

Thanks for the fun game mediumsnowman.

Congratulations to the town.

I think with all the public claims going on, the block did a good job of staying together. I feel the game was a little balanced in town's favor by the recruit role with the scum. I agree with fhomess that if we didn't have that option things might have played out differently each day.

I am really surprised that I wasn't investigated early on as I was person D in Dave's play. MT you did a good job leading town, even though I did try to add some stress into it with playing up the possibility of a traitor in the town block.

[JackJonespaw]

I am really surprised that I wasn't investigated early on as I was person D in Dave's play. MT you did a good job leading town, even though I did try to add some stress into it with playing up the possibility of a traitor in the town block.

Yea, that one messed us up a little bit. I still wasn't totally sure, as I ever am, that everyone in the block was townie, but we largely took care of it on the last night, which turns out we didn't really need to. So...I do appreciate the effort. This game's all about psychological tricks, and you played a nice one.