FABUpunk! Mafia II–Conclusion, The Spanish Inquisition

[Hinckley]

4 hours ago, Mobley Mouse said:

I think I’m now the anti-shadows. I haven’t won a game of fibula day mafia yet...

 

*fabuland!

FIBULA DAY!!!

[Hinckley]

OK game analysis and feedback mega-post.

Night Actions

At the start of the game, Benicia Bear (Pandora), The Trickster, is told she can give herself a killing Action only if she gives every player a role and only every third night. She can start giving herself a killing Action on Night Three.

The baby dwagon roles are given a 1 in 4 chance to have additional powers and then a 1 in 4 chance of being successful. Random selection for 1 through 4: 1: Protector, 2: Voyeur 3: Tracker 4: Investigator

One-shot Actions are treated as inventions, so Scum can double up their factional abilities with the one-shot Trickster Actions. May be overpowered...

Night One

Trickster is given these options:
 

Spoiler

 

Day One

Option 1 - Spin the Bottle

Scum kill is an Anarchist
Scum get a Blocker
Scum get a Godfather

1. Compulsive Bomb Defuser *
2. Compulsive Investigator *
3. Compulsive Investigator *
4. Compulsive Insane Investigator *
5. Compulsive Framer/Tailor *
6. Compulsive Framer/Tailor *
7. Miller *
8. Banker *
9. Compulsive Redirector *
10. Falsifier (Can make one one-shot Action FALSE, recipient gets three options) *
11. Normalizer (Reverts a falsified Action back to Normal) *
12. Role Watcher *
13. Compulsive Bodyguard
14. Reflexive Protector (protects any role that targets them from night kill)
15. Virgin
16. Compulsive Hooker
17. Loved
18. Fruit Vendor
19. Dwagon Bewwy Wub
20. Dwagon Mashmawwow Pawty

Option 2 - Kill Death Kill

Scum get a Godfather
Scum get a Blocker or Redirector

1. Compulsive Investigator/Lover *
2. Miller *
3. Compulsive Vigilante *
4. Lover *
5. Compulsive Doctor (If more than one doctor targets the same person, the target dies) *
6. Compulsive Doctor *
7. Compulsive Doctor *
8. Voyeur *
9. Falsifier (Can make one one-shot Action FALSE, recipient gets three options) *
10. Normalizer (Reverts a falsified Action back to Normal) *
11. Role Watcher *
12. Compulsive Ghoul (if targeted for a kill, including multiple protection, their target dies instead.) *
13. Tracker
14. Alien (Target is commuted)
15. Rolestopper
16. Compulsive Vote Thief
17. Virgin
18. Compulsive Hooker
19. Encryptor (If given to Scum, they are able to communicate during the Day)
20. Baby Dwagon Baf
21. Baby Dwagon Bed Time Stowy

Option 3 - Pick Your Poison

Scum get a Switch (one type of role, active, informative, manipulative)

1. Compulsive Tracker *
2. Compulsive Watcher *
3. Compulsive Investigator *
4. Compulsive Voyeur *
5. Compulsive Blocker *
6. Compulsive Vigilante *
7. Compulsive Protector *
8. Mirror *
9. Compulsive Bus Driver *
10. Compulsive Rolestopper *
11. Falsifier (Can make one one-shot Action FALSE, recipient gets three options) *
12. Normalizer (Reverts a falsified Action back to Normal) *
13. Role Watcher*
14. Encryptor (If given to Scum, they are able to communicate during the Day)
15. Virgin
16. Compulsive Hooker
17. Hated
18. Loved
19. Priest
20. Baby Dwagon Wuwwaby
21. Baby Dwagon Swumbew Pawty

Trickster selects Option 3

 

Bixby Bunny (mostlytechnic)—Compulsive Protector—targets Benicia Bear (Pandora)—Successful
Corrina Cow (Shadows)—Baby Dwagon Wuwwaby (25% chance of protection)—targets Benicia Bear (Pandora)—Successful & protection works (Shadows rolling three 1's in a row)
Holbrook Horse (jimmynick)—Compulsive Investigator/Switch—targets Marlow Monkey (Tariq J) & turns off informative Actions—Successful Switch causes Unsuccessful Investigation
Leatrix Lamb (Rick)—Compulsive Watcher—targets Mobley Mouse (Chromeknight)—Unsuccessful (due to Switch)
Parvani Poodle (Fugazi)—Compulsive Bus Driver/Scum Kill—targets Gilford Goat (Trekkie99) & Caladon Crocodile (Darkdragon) [Bus Driver] and Gilford Goat (Trekkie99) for the kill—Successful for both, resulting in Caladon Crocodile (Darkdragon) being killed.

Benici Bear (Pandora)—Falsifier—stays home—Trickster absorbs 1-shot Protector and 1-shot Baby Dwagon Wuwwaby (25% Protector)

Bartosz Buldog (Dannylonglegs)—Compulsive Tracker—targets Benicia Bear (Pandora)—Unsuccessful (due to Switch)
Caladon Crocodile (Darkdragon)—Compulsive Hooker—targets Gilford Goat but ends up targeting herself instead, due to Bus Drive—Successful
Emeric Elephant (KotZ)—Compulsive Voyeur—targets Mobley Mouse (Chromeknight)—Unsuccessful (due to Switch)
Franczeska Fox (Umbra-Manis)—Rolewatcher—targets Mobley Mouse (Chromeknight)—Successful—sees a one-shot Compulsive Vigilante Action
Gilford Goat (Trekkie99)—Compulsive Vigilante—targets Mobley Mouse (Chromeknight)—Successful
Hyacinth Hippo (Bob)—Normalizer—targets Corrina Cow—Successful (no effect)
Marlowe Monkey (Tariq J)—Compulsive Blocker—targets Shainen Sheepdog (Kristel)—Unsuccessful (Block reflected back by Mirror)
Mobley Mouse (Chromeknight)—Baby Dwagon Swumbew Pawty (no effect)—targets Franczeska Fox—Successful
Rutherford Raccoon (Lind Whisperer)—Compulsive Rolestopper—targets (randomly selected) Shainen Sheepdog (Kristel)—Unsuccessful (and a paradox)
Shainen Sheepdog (Kristel)—Mirror

The first conundrum of the game came from Rutherford Raccoon (originally Dragonator, but fortunately Lind Whisperer was able to step in). Since I was unsure that a player would ever take the role, I didn't bother selecting an Action. Lind Whisperer stepped in early on Day Two and people wanted to know what his Night Action result was. In trying to explain that conundrum to Lind Whisperer, I did a quick roll and got Shainen Sheepdog, which worked out perfectly as it didn't effect any of the Night Actions that had produced results. Doing too many things at once I told him he Rolestopped himself. Part of this was I had already confused him about why I hadn't selected a random target and didn't want to further confusion by delving into the paradox of a Rolestopper targeting a Mirror. So, I just told him he Rolestopped himself, just to provide an answer. I should've just stepped in and explained in a Mod Note that no Action had been performed, despite it being compulsive. Having a character utilize a role that a player may never have stepped into didn't seem fair to anyone and I think that would've been enough clarification. As it stood, the rolestopping himself answer almost got him lynched, so I stepped in to clarify that, yes, the ridiculous interaction is more likely unsuccessful that successful, whatever. Luckily, he isn't lynched because he scores the only Scum kill in the entire game.

Night One ends with the balance: 8-1-5

Night Two

Trickster is given these options:
 

Spoiler

 

*required role
/ if given, needs to be together
// if given, needs to be together

Day Two

Option 1 - Diabolique

Scum kill is a Shapeshifter
Scum get a Blocker
Scum get a Godfather

1. Compulsive Exorcist (Protects target from being shapeshifted) *
2. Compulsive Investigator *
3. Compulsive Investigator *
4. Compulsive Insane Investigator *
5. Lover *
6. Compulsive Framer/Tailor/Lover *
7. Compulsive Framer/Tailor *
8. Miller *
9. Compulsive Vigilante *
10. Falsifier (Can make one one-shot Action FALSE, recipient gets three options) /
11. Normalizer (Reverts a falsified Action back to Normal) /
12. Role Watcher /
13. Fruit Vendor
14. Dwagon Bewwy Wub (no effect)
15. Dwagon Mashmawwow Pawty (25% Voyeur)

Option 2 - Kill Death Kill

Scum get a Godfather
Scum get a Blocker or Redirector (Trickster chooses before Night Action deadline)

1. Compulsive Investigator *
2. Compulsive Vigilante *
3. Compulsive Protector (If more than one Protector targets the same person, the target dies) *
4. Compulsive Protector *
5. Compulsive Protector *
6. Miller/Lover *
7. Lover *
8. Falsifier (Can make one one-shot Action FALSE, recipient gets three options) /
9. Normalizer (Reverts a falsified Action back to Normal) /
10. Rolewatcher /
11. Virgin //
12. Compulsive Hooker //
13. Encryptor (If given to Scum, they are able to communicate during the Day)
14. Baby Dwagon Baf (no effect)
15. Baby Dwagon Bed Time Stowy (25% Voyeur)

Option 3 - Anarchy

Scum get a Godfather
Scum get a Blocker
Scum Kill is an Anarchist

1. Compulsive Investigator *
2. Compulsive Vigilante *
3. Deflectior *
4. Compulsive Bomb-Diffuser *
5. Compulsive Ghoul (if targeted by the Anarchist, their target gets the bomb instead.) *
6. Compulsive Blocker
7. Compulsive Watcher
8. Tracker
9. Virgin /
10. Compulsive Hooker /
11. Hider (If hides behind a bomb recipient, receives one too)
12. Fruit Vendor
13. Encryptor (If given to Scum, they are able to communicate during the Day)
14. Baby Dwagon Baf (no effect)
15. Baby Dwagon Bed Time Stowy (25% Voyeur)

Trickster chooses Option 3

 

Bixby Bunny (mostlytechnic)—Compulsive Watcher—targets Franczeska Fox (Umbra-Manis)—Successful—Franceska Fox (Umbra-Manis) is targeted by Emeric Elephant (KotZ) and Gilford Goat (Trekkie99)
Corrina Cow (Shadows)—Compulsive Bomb-proof Bomb Defuser/Blocker—targets Gilford Goat (Trekkie99)—Successful
Holbrook Horse (jimmynick)—Virgin/Anarchist—targets Bartosz Bulldog (Dannylonglegs)—Successful
Leatrix Lamb (Rick)—Fruit Vendor—targets Rutherford Raccoon (Lind Whisperer)—Successful
Parvani Poodle (Fugazi)—Deflector/Godfather—targets Benicia Bear (Pandora) to deflect any Actions targeted at her to Emeric Elephant (KotZ)—Successful

Benici Bear (Pandora)—Tracker—targets Rutherford Raccoon (Lind Whisperer)—Successful—Rutherford Raccoon (Lind Whisperer) targets Bixby Bunny (mostlytechnic)

Bartosz Buldog (Dannylonglegs)—Compulsive Blocker—targets Franczeska Fox (Umbra-Manis)—Successful
Emeric Elephant (KotZ)—Compulsive Hider—targets Franczeska Fox (Umbra-Manis)—Successful
Franczeska Fox (Umbra-Manis)—Baby Dwagon Bed Time Stowy—targets Gilford Goat (Trekkie99)—Unsuccessful, blocked by Town
Gilford Goat (Trekkie99)—Compulsive Investigator—targets Franczeska Fox (Umbra-Manis)—Unsuccessful, blocked by Scum
Hyacinth Hippo (Bob)—Baby Dwagon Baf—stays home
Marlowe Monkey (Tariq J)—Compulsive Ghoul—targets Hyacinth Hippo (Bob)—Successful (no effect)
Rutherford Raccoon (Lind Whisperer)—Compulsive Vigilante—targets Bixby Bunny (mostlytechnic)—Successful
Shainen Sheepdog (Kristel)—Compulsive Hooker—targets Parvani Poodle—Successful (no effect)

Night Two ends with the balance: 8-1-4

Night Three

Trickster is given these options:
 

Spoiler

 

Day Three

Option 1 - Diabolique

Scum kill is a Shapeshifter (Do you know if mods can see IPs in player’s posts? Admins can. This won’t work if mods can see it and I’ll just have to have a conversation with the other Admin in the game…)
Scum get a Blocker

1. Bomb-proof Bomb Defuser *
2. Compulsive Exorcist (Protects target from being shapeshifted) *
3. Compulsive Investigator *
4. Compulsive Investigator *
5. Compulsive Insane Investigator *
6. Lover *
7. Compulsive Framer/Tailor/Lover *
8. Compulsive Framer/Tailor *
9. Miller *
10. Vigilante
11. Falsifier (Can make one one-shot Action FALSE, recipient gets three options) /
12. Normalizer (Reverts a falsified Action back to Normal) /
13. Role Watcher /
14. Dwagon Bewwy Wub
15. Dwagon Mashmawwow Pawty

Option 2 - Pass Along

Scum get a Redirector
Scum get a Godfather (unless they keep avoiding detection. We'll see how Night Two goes...)

1. Bomb-proof Bomb Defuser *
2. Investigator *
3. Vigilante *
4. Protector *
5. Miller/Lover *
6. Lover *
7. Alien
8. Sidekick
9. Redirector
10. Falsifier (Can make one one-shot Action FALSE, recipient gets three options) /
11. Normalizer (Reverts a falsified Action back to Normal) /
12. Rolewatcher /
13. Encryptor (If given to Scum, they are able to communicate during the Day)
14. Baby Dwagon Baf
15. Baby Dwagon Bed Time Stowy

Option 3 - Life after Death

Scum get a Blocker
(Scum get a Godfather)

1. Bomb-proof Bomb Defuser *
2. Watcher
3. Tracker
4. Investigator
5. Beholder
6. Prince
7. Flying Pumpkin That Shoots Laser Beams Out Of Its Ass
8. Vengeful Investigator
9. Vengeful Watcher
10. Vengeful Tracker
11. Restless Spirit
12. Vote Thief
13. Vengeful Vote Thief
14. Baby Dwagon Wuwwaby
15. Baby Dwagon Swumbew Pawty

Trickster chooses Option 3

 

Corrina Cow (Shadows)—Flying Pumpking That Shoots Laser Beams Out of Its Ass—targets Hyacinth Hippo (Bob)—Successful
Holbrook Horse (jimmynick)—Watcher—targets Emeric Elephant (KotZ)—Successful—Emeric Elephant (KotZ) is targeted by Gilford Goat (Trekkie99)
Leatrix Lamb (Rick)—Restless Spirit/Godfather
Parvani Poodle (Fugazi)—prince/Scum Killer—targets Rutherford Raccoon (Lind Whisperer)—Successful

Benici Bear (Pandora)—Vengeful Tracker

Bartosz Buldog (Dannylonglegs)—baby Dwagon Swumbew Pawty—targets Corrina Cow (Shadows)—Successful
Emeric Elephant (KotZ)—Beholder—targets Hyacinth Hippo (Bob)—Successful—Holbrook Horse (jimmynick) targets Emeric Elephant (KotZ)
Gilford Goat (Trekkie99)—Compulsive Investigator—targets Emeric Elephant (KotZ)—Successful—Emeric Elephant (KotZ) is "Not Baby Dragon Hater"
Hyacinth Hippo (Bob)—Tracker—targets Holbrook Horse (jimmynick)—Holbrook Horse (jimmynick) targets Emeric Elephant (KotZ)
Marlowe Monkey (Tariq J)—Compulsive Bomb-proof Bomb Defuser—targets Hyacinth Hippo (Bob)—Successful (no effect)
Rutherford Raccoon (Lind Whisperer)—Vengeful Watcher
Shainen Sheepdog (Kristel)—Vengeful Investigator

Twilight

Rutherford Raccoon (Lind Whisperer)—Vengeful Watcher—targets Benicia Bear (Pandora)—Successful—Benicia Bear (Pandora) is targeted by nobody

Night Three ends with the balance: 5-1-4

Night Four

Trickster is given these options:
 

Spoiler

 

Option 1 - Poison

Scum kill is a  Poisoner (target will die when voting opens)
Scum get a Blocker
Scum get a Day Blocker

1. Poison Proof Poison Doctor *
2. Poison Proof Poison Doctor * (If both Poison Doctors target the same player, and that player is targeted by the Poisoner, the player will die, due to conflicting treatments)
3. Investigator *
4. Day Investigator *
5. Hider *
6. Watcher
7. Tracker
8. Beholder
9. Jailkeeper
10. Voyeur
11. Dwagon Bewwy Wub (no effect)
12. Dwagon Mashmawwow Pawty (33.33% Voyeur)

Option 2 - Hide n’ Seek

Scum get their factional kill
Scum get a Redirector

1. Compulsive Investigator *
2. Compulsive Investigator *
3. Compulsive Framer / Tailor *
4. Compulsive Framer / Tailor *
5. Alien
6. Jailkeeper
7. Tracker
8. Falsifier (Can make one one-shot Action FALSE, recipient gets three options) /
9. Normalizer (Reverts a falsified Action back to Normal) /
10. Rolewatcher /
11. Dwagon Bewwy Wub (no effect)
12. Dwagon Mashmawwow Pawty (33.33% Voyeur)

Option 3 - Protect and Serve

Scum get their factional kill
Scum get a Blocker

1. Vigilante *
2. Investigator *
3. Framer / Tailor *
4. Jailkeeper
5. Hunstman
6. Watcher
7. Tracker
8. Ghoul
9. Commuter
10. Motion Detector
11. Dwagon Bewwy Wub (no effect)
12. Dwagon Mashmawwow Pawty (33.33% Voyeur)

Trickster selects Option 3

 

Corrina Cow (Shadows)—Vigilante/Blocker—targets Emeric Elephant (KotZ)—Successful
Holbrook Horse (jimmynick)—Investigator/Scum Kill—targets Corrina Cow (Shadows) for investigation—Successful—Corrina Cow (Shadows) is a "Baby Dragon Hater"—targets Shainen Sheepdog for the kill—Successful
Leatrix Lamb (Rick)—Baby Dwagon Mawshmawwow Pawty (no effect)—targets Gilford Goat (Trekkie99)—Successful
Parvani Poodle (Fugazi)—Baby Dwagon Bewwy Wub (no effect)—targets Benicia Bear (Pandora)—Unsuccessful—Benicia Bear (Pandora) commuted

Benici Bear (Pandora)—Commuter—Commutes—Successful

Emeric Elephant (KotZ)—Motion Detector—targets Leatrix Lamb (Rick)—Successful—Leatrix Lamb (Rick) uses one Action.
Gilford Goat (Trekkie99)—Hunstman—targets Holbrook Horse (jimmynick)—Successful (Holbrook Horse [jimmynick] is not targeted for a kill)
Shainen Sheepdog (Kristel)—Watcher—targets Corrina Cow (Shadows)—Successful—Corrina Cow (Shadows) is targeted by Holbrook Horse (jimmynick)

Night Four ends with the balance: 1-1-4

[Hinckley]

Night Five needs some more in-depth discussion.

I knew it was going to be detrimental for Town/Trickster for them to start figuring things out on Night Four. Obviously, I couldn't step in at all and the Night Actions were coming in to continue to greatly benefit the Scum. Even a Day Five with 1-1-4 may have produced a Trickster win if they didn't know which of the two other players was the Trickster. But, judging by their analysis on the writeboard, they had Benicia Bear (Pandora) figured out. They didn't think she'd be able to give herself a killing Action so it caused a paranoid PM from Holbrook Horse (jimmynick) when Gilford Goat (Trekkie99) didn't take the bait on Holbrook's vigilante claim. Side note, Holbrook Horse (jimmynick) PMed me directly with his paranoid thoughts as many players do, which I love. He wasn't discussing it with other Scum during the Day, nor did he bring up his concerns on the writeboard. Just in case anybody wondered. But, I used to be a ludicrously meddlesome host. Even as recently as Thack Desteck, I helped the Scum and Traveler probably more than a little too much to draw the game out. I've improved so much from the early days of the Baritones game or even the more recent Forest I and II games. But, the instinct is still there. I think I've identified that I don't want to stress people out or hurt their feelings so when I do realize they're frustrated, I want to step in and help and that's the worst mindset for a host to have. But, I've been separating myself more and more from conversations about the game with the players while the game is going on. Seems like a no-brainer, but it took me a long time to get there.

That being said, I "meddled" a couple of times during this game. One would be poking Franczeska Fox (Umbra-Manis) about receiving a notification about his Baby Dwagon Swumbew Pawty, a detail he had forgotten. More on that later. The Trickster got the next day's options when Night started. Since she needed to decide by morning, this gave her the most time to think about the selection and then had another 24 hours to assign roles, a deadline we missed on Day Two. So, I tried to give her as much time to think about both as having a second deadline after Night Actions was also difficult for me. When she forgot, I had actually forgotten too, until people started PMing me asking if they hadn't gotten a role. So, on Night Four, knowing that the Hunstman (Gilford Goat [Trekkie99]) was protecting Scum and the Trickster was commuting, I dropped some crazy options for Night Five, hoping it would clue her into the fact that the Night was going horribly wrong for her and the Town, but mostly for any hope at keeping a balance and being within reach of a win (something two additional Townies might've helped ). She didn't pick up on it and it was ridiculous for me to hope that she would. I actually felt really bad that she was excited about all of the options and told me about what had been happening behind the scenes and that she was starting to suspect Corrina Cow (Shadows). I was honestly hoping the crazy set of Actions meant she was trusting the wrong people and either have a conversation with Gilford Goat (Trekkie99) or use her one-shot Redirector action to point Corrina Cow (Shadows) at Gilford Goat (Trekkie99) or something that would keep a balance and give either team a better shot of winning. So, here are the options I gave her, which I thought were hilarious and never intended for them to matter or be used. I was sober when I came up with and sent them and I pretty well knew Scum would win with 4 members remaining, no matter what Actions were chosen. I literally thought none of the setups mattered because with the Scum being so far out ahead, nothing could stop them from winning on Night Five.

Option 1

Scum kill is compulsive

1. Compulsive Vigilante
2. Hidden Bomb
3. Hidden PGO
4. Hidden PGO
5. Hidden Sleepwalker
6. Hidden Sleepwalker
7. Baby Dwagon Poop Cweanup (no effect)
8. Baby Dwagon Poop Cweanup (no effect)

Option 2

Scum get their factional kill

1. Investigator
2. Investigator
3. Developer
4. Vigilante
5. Voteless
6. Hider
7. Baby Dwagon Poop Cweanup (no effect)
8. Baby Dwagon Poop Cweanup (no effect)

Option 3

Scum kill is compulsive

1. Parrot
2. Ghoul
3. Bus Driver
4. Compulsive Vigilante
5. Deflector
6. Redirector
7. Baby Dwagon Poop Cweanup (no effect)
8. Baby Dwagon Poop Cweanup (no effect)

So, she loved Option 1 and then I had to make that tenable for the game. Letting the Scum team blow themselves up with random sleepwalking would've been bullshit and totally broken. The Actions were actually supposed to get weaker the closer to endgame the game got, because I didn't want to force a re-balance, which I felt would punish the Scum for doing a good job. I'm still kicking myself for missing the note about the Vigilante converting to a strongarm modifier for the Scum kill if the Trickster gave the Vigilante to Scum. I know why I missed it but more about that later.

This is what we came up with (because Pandora helped talk me through it. After the Night Action deadline passed, I confessed that she was in a tight spot to even think about a win and that Option 1 was unfair to the remaining players):

Scum kill is compulsive

1. Compulsive Vigilante
2. Hidden Bomb (any Action triggers)
3. Hidden PGO (kill only)
4. Hidden Sleepwalker
5. Compulsive Baby Dwagon Poop Cweanup (no effect)
6. Compulsive Baby Dwagon Poop Cweanup (no effect)
7. Compulsive Baby Dwagon Poop Cweanup (no effect)
8. Compulsive Baby Dwagon Poop Cweanup (no effect)

Which I still think is more hilarious than actually a smart setup, but what was done was done at that point and this seemed the best way to go forward with my "joke" setup being chosen.

Night Five

Corrina Cow (Shadows)—Hidden Sleepwalker—(randomly) targets Parvani Poodle (Fugazi)—Successful (no effect)
Holbrook Horse (jimmynick)—Baby Dwagon Poop Cweanup—targets Leatrix Lamb (Rick)—Successful
Leatrix Lamb (Rick)—Baby Dwagon Poop Cweanup/Scum Kill—targets Holbrook Horse (jimmynick) for Poop—Successful—targets Gilford Goat (Trekkie99) for kill—Successful, also explodes
Parvani Poodle (Fugazi)—Hidden PGO

Gilford Goat (Trekkie99)—Hidden Bomb—explodes when Leatrix Lamb (Rick) plays the sacrificial lamb for the Scum team and chooses to take the kill...

Final Balance: 0-0-(technically)3—Scum win

Option 3 was actually the one that made me laugh the hardest (with Option 1 a close second) because it would've been a nightmare to sort out.

[Benicia Bear]

Congratulations Scum, very well played and a deserved win. There's a lot of stuff I said in the game which wasn't actually true, and really considering I was playing a Neutral role that should be obvious, but it seems it bears reminding (no pun intended). So yes, despite having a ridiculous amount of scum to be able to confuse and misdirect discussion, and being able to use both your scum abilities and those I assigned you, I do think you deserved the win. I will say that some of you played better than others, but with so goddamn many of you that's pretty much a given.  Some of you were better winners than others too. 

 

Anyway, I was never really into scum hunting as much as people think (and in retrospect I should have been), I wanted everyone dead after all, but I also know what my town game looks like, and considering I had a (justifiable) paranoia about being exposed as the Trickster I had to play up to that. That meant cosying up to people who seemed to everyone to be townie, not just who I thought was town. In my private messages I told people what I wanted them to know and kept my narrative simple and consistent. I fashioned what I thought was a reasonable spectrum of who I found townie and who I found scummy, which was indeed based on my views and observations, but to say I ever trusted anyone is quite wrong. I was a team of just one, after all. I chose my roles for plausible deniability for the role of Trickster, and I ignored any absorbed roles and eschewed the kill when it became available. I wanted to move seamlessly through the game as a townie, trying her best, which is why I had those conversations with my "trusted" friends, for instance to make sure they knew I was commuting (so you don't waste your action on me!) but more so nobody could say that it was a convenient claim the next day. Being accused of being the Trickster for posting that I had received the Baby Dwagon Lullaby action was frustrating. That, unfortunately, made me more defensive and had an impact on my later game. I had a conversation with Hinckley much later where I said I'd been talking to Corrina who (in a particular sequence of messages) came off quite scummy and that as a result everything I thought was probably wrong. Honestly if I had really considered there'd be that many scum (so many scum!  ) then I would have taken the true scum hunting much more seriously, or at least tried to do so within the confines of trying to protect myself from random accusations of being the Trickster. Oh well. I would like to say that the conversations with @Corrina Cow were really nice (I know that's an odd thing to say, but it's true), and I truly loved how you played her character, even in PMs. I think you played the best in your team, so congratulations on a game well played.  

 

18 hours ago, Parvani Poodle said:

Besides, the Trickster totally deserved the win too, I can't imagine what it means to be playing such a complicated role. Congratulations to Pandora, you really had us guessing up until the end!

That is a very kind thing to say, thank you. Congratulations on your win. You ended up with a PGO at the end because of Corrina's message to me about keeping on giving you the benefit of the doubt. It was one of those situations where someone I had just realised was scummy was saying scummy things about you and my view turned upside down and considering there couldn't possibly be more than three remaining scum (hahahaha!  ) that put you weirdly into the town box with @Gilford Goat (who I thought would enjoy being a bomb) so you got the PGO. At least after giving you all those roles you didn't like (I thought they were ok, actually) I didn't give you the shit-shoveller or sleepwalker role! 

 

17 hours ago, Dannylonglegs said:

Am I the only one who knew 100% what the Defuser role meant then? I really didn't think it was that hard... 

No, I knew. I had to spend a long time looking things up on MafiaScum or asking Hinck about the myriad of different roles that kept appearing on the three lists every game day. I think it was only the Vengeful that I didn't bloody ask about, and that turned out to be a pointless role to give to myself and a wasted night. Anyway, confusion is helpful. I chipped stuff in where I thought I needed to look town, but really I just wanted to thin the numbers. Scum were very helpful with that until ultimately they were too helpful and it went a little skew-whiff.  

 

5 hours ago, Leatrix Lamb said:

And congratulations @Benicia Bear. Well-played.

Again, this is very kind, thank you. Congratulations on your win.

Night two I was going to track your Fruit Vending, wanting to see what you did, but decided instead to send in the action to track Rutherford as he was the nearly-lynched and I knew he had the Vig, not expecting he would hit a scum (mind you... with so many to choose from it would have been hard not to  ). You gave your Fruit anyway, and in retrospect it didn't actually change my opinion of you.

 

5 hours ago, Leatrix Lamb said:

 I loved the role-playing by you three two.

I may have missed something, but I don't get this.  

 

13 minutes ago, Hinckley said:

So, on Night Four, knowing that the Hunstman (Gilford Goat [Trekkie99]) was protecting Scum and the Trickster was commuting, I dropped some crazy options for Night Five, hoping it would clue her into the fact that the Night was going horribly wrong for her and the Town, but mostly for any hope at keeping a balance and being within reach of a win (something two additional Townies might've helped ). She didn't pick up on it and it was ridiculous for me to hope that she would. I actually felt really bad that she was excited about all of the options and told me about what had been happening behind the scenes and that she was starting to suspect Corrina Cow (Shadows). I was honestly hoping the crazy set of Actions meant she was trusting the wrong people and either have a conversation with Gilford Goat (Trekkie99) or use her one-shot Redirector action to point Corrina Cow (Shadows) at Gilford Goat (Trekkie99) or something that would keep a balance and give either team a better shot of winning. So, here are the options I gave her, which I thought were hilarious and never intended for them to matter or be used. I was sober when I came up with and sent them and I pretty well knew Scum would win with 4 members remaining, no matter what Actions were chosen. I literally thought none of the setups mattered because with the Scum being so far out ahead, nothing could stop them from winning on Night Five.

Oh Hinckle-Stinckle I do love you and your beautiful, crazy games. All the discussions, all the planning, me asking endless questions about what would happen with roles a and b in the context of absorbing x and using y and all that guff - it was exhaustingly wonderful, thank you. Your hosting is, in my opinon, the best mafia game hosting we have, and continues to improve each time. 

I would like to point out, in reference to the highlighted segments, all the options you dropped for each day were crazy, and night five's actions were really not all that crazy by comparison! So yes, it was ridiculous to think I'd pick up on it, especially when you'd been telling me about how much better you were at not messing with things!  

Day Five really... yeah it was quite an unpleasant sensation really, going from thinking I might have a chance with two townies (who I thought were Gilford and probably Parvani), to quite quickly the penny dropping and basically feeling a bit like a punching bag, so it was a really crap way to end the game.  I am grateful to have had this role and to be so weirdly involved in the game mechanics and I love your MOCs, photography, comics, sense of humour and the time you give to produce all this, so thank you Hinckley, for being a wonderful host of a wonderful game.   

[Holbrook Horse]

12 minutes ago, Benicia Bear said:

I may have missed something, but I don't get this.  

It seems to be a dig at Gilford. One thing I know for sure is that your roleplaying was just spectacular

[Leatrix Lamb]

 

18 minutes ago, Benicia Bear said:

I may have missed something, but I don't get this.  

 

3 minutes ago, Holbrook Horse said:

It seems to be a dig at Gilford. One thing I know for sure is that your roleplaying was just spectacular

What the horse said. I love what you did to Benicia. I liked Gilford a lot as well (but it wasn't role playing, still better than mine) and I had a bit of fun trying to confuse him on the final day.

 

[Dannylonglegs]

I will say, Benicia that your defensiveness at one point really put me on your scent but I was so unsure if it was actual defensiveness or you just RPing so I got way more wishy washy thereafter and then analyzed myself into a hole. I really regret not sticking to it more adamantly when I saw that on like day 1 or 2 or whenever it was. 

[Hinckley]

Thoughts on the game

*Typically, I will start by criticizing myself to no end before even daring to criticize my players, but I've started with some feedback regarding the Town's game. I feel like I'm being a dick, but my intention is to give my perspective on how you might be able to improve your game. I'm putting it up front because I'm less likely to forget the criticism I have for myself than the feedback I have for the players. I really have the best of intentions and apologize ahead of time if I hurt anyone's feelings in my analysis. Please feel free to point out the thousand things I'm sure I'm missing having sat on the outside looking in and not being in the game, which I know makes a world of difference.

Balance

I fully admit there were too many Scum. 4 would've been plenty. I felt the tenuous balance right after Night One produced two dead Townies and the balance was already at 8:1:5. I felt better on Night Two after Rutherford Raccoon (Lind Whisperer) killed Bixby Bunny (mostlytechnic) and the balance was 8:1:4, but that was short lived. Imagine if Lind Whisperer hadn't stepped in to play Rutherford Raccoon. The game would've ended a lot earlier.

While the game was flawed in balance, it wasn't unwinnable by Town (or Trickster, although extra kills throwing the balance off was my fault). While I take full responsibility for the balance, and for allowing the Scum to have two kills, I think the Town made its fair share of mistakes. I don't mean to blame anybody with this feedback, I hope you can take it as advice and learn from it.

Let's take a look at the final vote tally from Day Three.

Final Vote tally

Franczeska Fox: 8 (penalty, penalty, penalty, Emeric Elephant, Hyacinth Hippo, Rutherford Raccoon, Marlowe Monkey, Bartosz Bulldog)
Parvani Poodle: 3 (penalty, penalty, penalty)
Hyacinth Hippo: 7 (Benicia Bear, Holbrook Horse, Leatrix Lamb, Corrina Cow, Franczeska Fox, Gilford Goat, Shainen Sheepdog)
Emeric Elephant: 1 (Parvani Poodle)

Had anybody bothered to do this with it:

Franczeska Fox: 8 (penalty, penalty, penalty, Emeric Elephant, Hyacinth Hippo, Rutherford Raccoon, Marlowe Monkey, Bartosz Bulldog)
Parvani Poodle: 3 (penalty, penalty, penalty)
Hyacinth Hippo: 7 (Benicia Bear, Holbrook Horse, Leatrix Lamb, Corrina Cow, Franczeska Fox, Gilford Goat, Shainen Sheepdog)
Emeric Elephant: 1 (Parvani Poodle)

Before you read what I think about this analysis, take a look and see if it tells you anything. From outside, the game, it was easy for me to see that all of the Scum were on the Hyacinth Hippo (Bob) wagon. Thinking back to how the day progressed, people were supsicious of Marlowe Monkey (Tariq J) and Emeric Elephant (KotZ), so this might not have made much of a difference. Eventually, somebody did go back and analyze all of the votes, but it was Parvani Poodle ( @Fugazi )! I think having a confirmed Townie lynched and seeing 3/5 voters were Town would at least push your eye more to the other wagon. Seeing the votes laid out like this can certainly help you focus what might be going on in the game. I'll show you a more nuanced way to analyze votes:

Day One Final Vote tally

Mobley Mouse: 6 (Hyacinth Hippo, Corrina Cow, Benicia Bear, Caladon Crocodile, Bixby Bunny, Emeric Elephant)
Hyacinth Hippo: 2 (Marlowe Monkey, Leatrix Lamb)
Gilford Goat: 4 (Parvani Poodle, Franczeska Fox, Holbrook Horse, Shainen Sheepdog)
Bartosz Bulldog: 1 (Gilford Goat)
Rutherford Raccoon: 1 (Bartosz Bulldog)

Non-voters: 2 (Mobley Mouse, Rutherford Raccoon)

Day Two Final vote tally

Marlowe Monkey: 1 (Holbrook Horse)
Franczeska Fox: 1 (Bartosz Bulldog)
Hyacinth Hippo: 2 (Leatrix Lamb, Benicia Bear, Shainen Sheepdog)
Rutherford Raccoon: 5 (Emeric Elephant, Hyacinth Hippo, Marlowe Monkey, Corrina Cow)
Emeric Elephant: 1 (Rutherford Raccoon)
Shainen Sheepdog: 1 (Gilford Goat)
Leatrix Lamb: 1 (Bixby Bunny) *This vote appears to have been made after the end of the Day.

Non-voters: 2 (Franczeska Fox, Parvani Poodle)

Day Three Final Vote tally

Franczeska Fox: 8 (penalty, penalty, penalty, Emeric Elephant, Hyacinth Hippo, Rutherford Raccoon, Marlowe Monkey, Bartosz Bulldog)
Parvani Poodle: 3 (penalty, penalty, penalty)
Hyacinth Hippo: 7 (Benicia Bear, Holbrook Horse, Leatrix Lamb, Corrina Cow, Franczeska Fox, Gilford Goat, Shainen Sheepdog)
Emeric Elephant: 1 (Parvani Poodle)

Day Four Final vote tally

Marlowe Monkey: 7 (Gilford Goat, Benicia Bear, Corrina Cow, Leatrix Lamb, Emeric Elephant, Holbrook Horse, Parvani Poodle)
Benicia Bear: 1 (Marlowe Monkey)
Leatrix Lamb: 1 (Shainen Sheepdog)

Let's first look at the Scummiest voter, Leatrix Lamb (Rick), who will probably never vote this way as Scum again, but let's look for what I saw—admittedly knowing full well that he was Scum, which certainly helped in my analysis. Even by the overall tally of votes, he's always in the middle of the pack. Every. Time. He's not leading votes, he's not hammering and twice he follows other Scum. True, you don't know this if you're analyzing this from the uninformed majority, but he votes in quick succession after Holbrook Horse (jimmynick) on Day Three and Corrina Cow (Shadows) on Day Four. Even looking at Day One, in the finaly vote tally, he's listed as the first vote on Hyacinth Hippo (Bob), but he only got that position after Marlowe Monkey (Tariq J) unvoted. So, looking at the final vote tally with the names highlighted in the color of the known alignment is helpful, actually looking at the pattern throughout the day is more helpful: When did a person vote? Who else voted for that person? How many other posts did they make after voting opened before voting. Had they mentioned suspicions of who they voted for before voting? This is why I leave the votes in each tally, so you can click on each post and see where they voted and everything that they said. Since we're in anonymous gamer accounts, you can go to their profile and look for their content and look at the evolution of their thoughts in order. Leatrix Lamb (Rick), you're a Scummy voter.

Now, let's look at Parvani Poodle (Fugazi). Always voting late, so much so that he missed Day Two's vote. Not to mention, she actively refuses to put her fucking vote on a separate line so it's easier for me to find when tallying. That's Scummy! It's harder to find a Scummy pattern here. In the short amount of Days you had to analyze, she doesn't vote one Day, and what Scum would risk penalty votes. Votes off the wagons the next, and by then it's too late on Day Four to catch anything else. So, it doesn't look incredibly Scummy until you look at her vote on Day One coupled with her Action on Night One. She voted for Gilford Goat (Trekkie99) because of his supposed "let's claim, bitches!" post and left it there despite Mobley Mouse (Chromeknight) being closer to a lynch. Then, she chose to Bus Drive Gilford Goat (Trekkie99) with Caladon Crocodile (Darkdragon) supposedly believing the former Scum and the latter Town. Great plan. In what fucking world would the Scum kill the second-highest vote getter on Night One? Honestly, this should've gotten Parvani Poodle (Fugazi) lynched. That might have turned on Gilford Goat (Trekkie99) after she flipped Scum, but still, this deserved a lot more scutiny than it got. The move itself may be a Townie move, but if you have a Bus Driver Action and it actually ends up affecting the Scum kill, that's amazing. The first thing a Townie should do, hold onto that info as opposed to blurting it out immediately and then shedding a bunch of crocodile tears over it. In this situation, a Townie should've let the conversation last for a while to try and garner any information that the Scum team might slip up with having their kill target bus driven. You may think this seems improbable, but this game is filled with slip-ups from the Scum team, indicating that they knew too much and they did get called out on that, but only by other Scum. And nobody else picked up on those instances. Voting for and then bus-driving the Scum kill target is an amazing feat for a Townie.

And we'll look at Gilford Goat ( @Trekkie99 ). He's all over the board, voting late, voting early, on the wagon, off the wagon. Maybe the same can be said about Parvani, demonstrating the vote analysis is not an exact science, but in retrospect there's an evolution to Parvani Poodle (Fugazi)'s voting and a randomness to Gilford Goat (Trekkie99)'s that indicates he's voting for reasons other than when it's safe to or where he may show up on a wagon. It's easier to follow his logic and reasoning, because it's blunt and concise, but also because there's a through line. His votes are about the evolution of his analysis of the game and it shows in his voting pattern.

Again, this is not an exact science. I tend to wait for a wagon to get going no matter which side I'm on, even when it's a person I've made a case against. But, now that the game's over, take a look at some of these tallies knowing the alignments now and see if you can't pick up any patterns that may help you analyze votes in future games, or if you played Scum, any pattern that may help you avoid detection in future games. It's probably easiest to start out with Holbrook Horse (jimmynick) and Corrina Cow (Shadows) and see if you notice anything. If you don't immediately see a pattern in the final tallies I posted, go back to each game day, Ctrl+F "Hinckley" and look how the votes went during the Day. Follow their votes back to their posts and look with fresh eyes at how they presented things and why they voted. It's a fascinating exercise if you're interested in improving your Scum-hunting skills or your Scum game.

Mechanics

I've been composing this for a while and I'm feeling like kind of a dick. I typically criticize myself first before criticizing the players from my game, but I really want to get this out first as I feel you're more likley to read what's up-front and I have a longer wall of text for what I did wrong in this game. I also need a break. But I want to say first that I know the mechanics are super wacky in this setup and I was throwing in new roles in order to keep everyone on their toes. This is not an easy setup Town, Scum, Trickster or host! It's fucking complicated. I made a mess of a couple of things, but for the reasons stated above, I'm giving advice to the Town first.

Two simple rules that I think should be followed in every game, as Town: 1. Know your role 2. Don't get bogged down in the mechanics.

Mechanics analysis killed the Town. I think the Town spent more time analyzing the mechanics than hunting Scum and the Scum took full advantage of it. Now, I admit, 5 Scum was too many. FABUpunk! I had two Scum lost in Two days so I was adding a "buffer" for that instead of recalibrating my roulette wheel back to zero. That's the hussle of a roulette wheel. Probability always rewinds to zero on the next spin. If it's been an hour since "26" was hit, it doesn't mean that it's going to hit soon. It may be a year before that ball lands on "26" again. I didn't have the same Scum team in this game, I had Fugazi, jimmynick, mostlytechnic, Rick and Shadows. When the cups (not bowls or hats, Rick) gave me that Scum team, I should've swapped one out or removed one, especially considering I didn't know if Dragonator was going to be able to play. My bad. But, it wasn't unwinnable for the Town. Having one less Scum would've given you more time, but Holbrook Horse (jimmynick) and Corrina Cow (Shadows) seemed, from my perspective, to have everybody else in their pockets. So much discussion revolved around the mechanics that you missed posts like this:

On 8/23/2020 at 10:17 PM, Parvani Poodle said:

I think you're correct, but unless Gilford lied about it, he was blocked on night 2. He couldn't have been going about planting a bomb in Bartosz's pail. Of course as far as I know he was also targeted by Scum on night 1.

Yes, she explained that she assumed Bartosz Bulldog (Dannylonglegs) was the Bomb victim because the bucket gave two warnings. Very clever. Two crows also killed Rutherford Raccoon (Lind Whisperer). It could be explained away with that fine, but she said the above quote after saying this:

On 8/23/2020 at 7:50 PM, Parvani Poodle said:

There have been three deaths last night, and I'm thinking of ways they could add up.

1) scum kill

2) bomb from night 2 that wasn't defused

3) pumpkin shooting lasers out of his ass

4) vengeful if there was one or more among last night's victims

5) unaccounted-for action?

We know Franczeska was lynched. What about the others?

Bold added for emphasis there. At first, she doesn't know what happened to the other two. Two hours and 20 minutes later, she has an opinion about it.

There are a lot of quotes like this from the Scum team. If I can find them, I'll point them out but I winced at a few of them throughout the game and I think it was from all five of them and the Trickster.

Look up the roles. If it's yours like Bomb Defuser or if it's not like the Flying Pumpkin That Shoots Laser Beams Out of Its Ass, look it up and if you don't understand it, ask questions. I went into full-on dick mode explaining the "aiming" mechanic of the role, because he asked so many questions about it. If anybody had looked up the role and then saw that is successfully killed a Townie, Corrina Cow ( @Shadows ) should've been questioned regarding aiming. Same goes for the Bomb Defuser. Scum explained it to Marlowe Monkey (Tariq J). I think the Marlowe lynch was bullshit. We are solidly in a phase of EB Mafia where the Town doesn't pay attention or makes mistakes while the Scum is paying attention and polishing all of their corners. Town has to pay equal attention because it still seems Scummy and a responsible Town has to act on questionable behavior. I think there were enough Scum tells for either Parvani Poodle (Fugazi) or Leatrix Lamb (Rick) to be lynched on Day Four instead of Marlowe Monkey (Tariq J) and even people who were highly suspicious of Leatrix Lamb (Rick) seemed to (I'm emphaszing "seemed" because I know it's easier to criticize this from the host's perspective and had I been in the game I might've hammered Marlowe Monkey [Tariq J]) easily vote for Marlowe and not look more closely at anyone else's behavior, again getting bogged down in the mechanics, and missing the Scum tells. I think Marlowe Monkey (Tariq J) did a decent job defending himself, but it was a bit too late in the Day and it was from the perspective of "You'll see tomorrow" when tomorrow was way too late. I would've liked to have seen his defense not revolve around the mechanics and find a better target for a lynch by looking for Scum-tells. I knew the target of Hyacinth Hippo (Bob) for the Bomb Defuser was off, but if I clarified anything or asked him any questions about it, that could be considered interference and I assumed there was some strategy he'd come to with the Town block. If I checked to make sure he understood the role at that point, I felt it might be meddling and if one question from me got him to switch his target, that's potentially stepping outside of the host's duties (something I felt I did with Franczeska Fox (Umbra-Manis), again that I will address in a later post). If you have any doubt or confusion, please ask the host. You may not know who is on your team, but the stronger each individual member of the Town is, the more likely they'll beat the Scum. Knowing exactly how your role works is the best way to play for the team when you're in an uninformed majority.

Hyacinth Hippo ( @Bob ) talked his way out of a lynch and told everyone that if he flipped Town, look at the votes. As I mentioned above after Hyacinth Hippo (Bob) and Franczeska Fox (Umbra-Manis) both flipped Town, somebody should've analyzed the votes, especially after Hyacinth Hippo (Bob) told you to, repeatedly. He asked everyone to look at those who were voting for him for being "lazy" and that it's not a reason to vote someone out, it comes from a Scum Perspective; this Townie is lazy, therefore I know he's a Townie. (Maybe Town called him lazy, I'm not checking right now because I've been at this for hours) He said eliminating Scum is the name of the game in the next sentence and I named Day Four "The Name of the Game" in hopes someone would call back to his post. But nobody analyzed the votes against him after he flipped Town.

I'm digging in pretty hard in my criticism of the Town, and I apologize. I'm not trying to make anybody feel bad, my intention is truly to help you by pointing out things I felt you were missing.

I think Bartosz Bulldog ( @Dannylonglegs ) admitted this fault on the dead writeboard, so I feel like less of a dick bringing him up as an example of this. A good portion of Day Two revolved around his analysis of what the Trickster could do, and then launched into an analysis of who might be the Trickster, based on the incorrect assumptions he was making. The Trickster is one threat. That's one way that Omrom killed the Town in "Blood in the Grass" was revealing the Serial Killer and giving the Scum an entire Day to keep hiding. Even with a threatening Neutral, the Town can't lose sight of fighting the Scum.

I'll be back later to analyze the Trickster role and then ultimately brow-beat myself for the mistakes I made in this game.

[Trekkie99]

37 minutes ago, Hinckley said:

Corrina Cow ( @Shadows ) should've been questioned regarding aiming.

Yeah this one seems so obvious now. 

[Bob]

45 minutes ago, Hinckley said:

Hyacinth Hippo ( @Bob ) talked his way out of a lynch and told everyone that if he flipped Town, look at the votes. As I mentioned above after Hyacinth Hippo (Bob) and Franczeska Fox (Umbra-Manis) both flipped Town, somebody should've analyzed the votes, especially after Hyacinth Hippo (Bob) told you to, repeatedly. He asked everyone to look at those who were voting for him for being "lazy" and that it's not a reason to vote someone out, it comes from a Scum Perspective; this Townie is lazy, therefore I know he's a Townie. (Maybe Town called him lazy, I'm not checking right now because I've been at this for hours) He said eliminating Scum is the name of the game in the next sentence and I named Day Four "The Name of the Game" in hopes someone would call back to his post. But nobody analyzed the votes against him after he flipped Town.

I don't know how I talked my way out of that lynch, but it is interesting that every scum piled onto my vote.

[jimmynick]

9 minutes ago, Bob said:

I don't know how I talked my way out of that lynch, but it is interesting that every scum piled onto my vote.

It helped that Franczeska already had penalty votes but your observation that:

On 8/21/2020 at 10:00 PM, Hyacinth Hippo said:

There's still time for people to change their votes. Like I said, the silence from some of the most talkative big post counters is deafening. 

was very incisive, especially since (a) all the scum were on your wagon and (b) I was one of the more talkative ones.

[Darkdragon]

The scum were very obvious by day three. I think there was way too much focus by the players (probably scum lead) on mechanics and that did cause a lot of town mistakes or missed glaring scum tells.

There were too many scum, but that really only matters when the town is actually finding them. If it came down to 2:1:1 then it would be more of an issue I think.

 

[Shadows]

5 hours ago, Bob said:

but it is interesting that every scum piled onto my vote.

Like I said in the final day, I really wanted to lynch you and pumpkin the fox, it was the only way I could legitimately claim to have aimed early, then no one ever asked.

There was definitely a point where we just got lazy, or too bold, or something, but it was obvious that nobody was reading anything said, so I started saying slightly odd things (this was before the mad cow episode in the final day). We got into poking at each other, which for all of it's insanity, probably looked more town than the alternative, but we definitely didn't worry about voting patterns or anything.

It must have been day 4, but I remember talking about the likely breakdown by alignment and flat out based it on 4 scum, which was the number left and something no one seemed to even consider along the way. Not a word was said.

[Hinckley]

More thoughts on the game (positive edition)

I greatly appreciate everyone's energy for this game. The roleplaying was fantastic, making it really hard to choose roleplay winners. Even doing two a Day, I was worried that people would feel left out or unappreciated. I loved @Darkdragon 's annoyance with animals and should've gotten her a post-humous shout-out but with so many other mechanics and pictures/comics to wrestle with, I forgot. This reminded me of old-school Mafia and I vote we dub this the Baby Dragon Age of EB Mafia as we seem to have renewed energy in this forum and a good mix of forum inbred jerks old and new blood. I appreciate that everybody genuinely wanted to stay in the game and the slow pace of death/lynch at the beginning of the game didn't bother me at all, because everybody was having fun. Also, I was already biting my nails about the balance so no-lynches didn't bother me this time. Delayed kills seem like a lot of fun to me, though, so maybe I'll start using a Poisoner again or utilize that Anarchist role in a future game. I'm not sure I'll use the Trickster again but more on that later. I was genuinely laughing hard at so many of the interactions, jokes and roleplay that were happening and I appreciate the extra effort and instead of dumping a wall of text about it, I'll respond to all the great comments we've had in here after the conclusion. This is also reminding me of earlier days when we actually spent time discussing a game in the conclusion. I think this is the longest discussion post-game in recent memory, although I think Pirates III was a bit longer, but for obvious reasons I may have blocked portions of that out.

On 8/30/2020 at 7:19 PM, Darkdragon said:

 

@Hinckley definitely has a talent for bringing out an insane amount of emotion from a Fabuland character with a perfect head tilt.

Coming from a fellow story-teller, that means a ton! Thank you! I always find it a challenge not to be able to switch heads that have tears, blush, anger, fear and really try to squeeze that emotion out of the FABULAND characters. That being said, they have incredibly expressive faces on their own and half the battle is getting the right camera angle. I think the raccoon figure is really cute, but I don't think he's very photogenic. #ThoughtsOfAFABULANDNerd

On 8/30/2020 at 7:23 PM, KotZ said:

To get away from the game and mechanics, I just want to say what awesome builds (kind of a repurpose?) from Hinckley. Such a beautiful airship and the dragons (those were MOCs right?). Great work on all the builds.

So, this was a complete rebuild of a MOC I brought to Brickworld Chicago 2019. I meant to just tweak a couple of things, but spent about two weeks building almost an entirely new model. Here is the original:

On 8/30/2020 at 7:23 PM, KotZ said:

It's like watching a someone is a character costume emoting perfectly!

I really have to thank everyone who made comments about this. Thank you!

On 8/30/2020 at 7:25 PM, KotZ said:

And how dare you call my BEHOLD! a circle jerk!

I think the "circle jerk" comment was in reference to all the Actions revolving around you, for whatever reason. I'm sure there was a grand plan for that, but watching the Town's chances slip quickly away and everybody somehow targeting you had me pulling my hair out. Can anyone explain what that was all about?

On 8/30/2020 at 7:25 PM, Bartosz Bulldog said:

And yeah I mentioned before but Hink. These MoCs are gorgeous with a capital G.  

Thank you! You told me this in the first game and I'm not sure I ever responded. I explained the evolution of the build above ^ and the pictures in the opening that visited all the different realms of Fal Bandu were just MOCs that I keep together for conventions, slightly repurposed to make different locales for the elaborate exposition that set the stage for the game.

On 8/30/2020 at 7:29 PM, Trekkie99 said:

This one's the best! 

So, I have to google all this pop culture stuff and while I vaguely understand where this one came from, I still don't get how it evolved into what it is. I'm a Gen-Xer so I shouldn't really give a fuck. I do Google "yeet" and "nani" every game to make sure I'm using them correctly.

On 8/30/2020 at 7:31 PM, Dannylonglegs said:

Lovely game. Had a blast and a half even spectating was a riot. I enjoyed myself so much I did fanart... or... well... maybe this counts as a fursona? beats me.

You drew this! My first fan art. I love that you took the time and effort to do this. Definitely does Bartosz justice.

On 8/30/2020 at 7:34 PM, Shadows said:

That was one of the reasons I retired all those years ago, it got to the point where people wanted me dead at the beginning, just in case. Really ruins the fun. For me at least.

I got you killed twice in one game once upon a time...

On 8/30/2020 at 7:35 PM, Trekkie99 said:

Yeah Cow did a great job playing dumb!  "Oh man! The trickster keeps giving me these powerful roles! Oh my gosh it's so much responsibility!" lol

On 8/30/2020 at 7:37 PM, Dannylonglegs said:

Fr fr she hit up my DMs like "Sowwy mistew buwdog, I don't know how to do actions. Can u help me pwetty pwease" and I was eating that shit right out of her hooves. ugh I feel like I need a shower.

Vote: Shadow, The best femme fatale

Dear Lord. Did that not ping you when she had a perfect definition of Anarchist??

On 8/30/2020 at 8:43 PM, Shadows said:

I'm not bad, I'm just written that way.

Shadows is the Kathleen Turner of Mafia.

On 8/30/2020 at 7:42 PM, jimmynick said:

The comics and MOCs in this game have been fantastic (as others have mentioned), major props to Hinck for putting everything he had into the presentation. I was so pleased my headcanon that this game is in the same continuity as The Forest 3 was confirmed by the appearance of spiders!

On 8/30/2020 at 8:03 PM, jimmynick said:

I’m not quite au fait with the lore but are we sure Autumn Falls is located within the Forest of Darkness? Do I have to dig the archives to Forest 1 to find out?

On 8/30/2020 at 8:06 PM, Dannylonglegs said:

Honestly? NGL I'm in awe of the fact that these games have legit Lore

Oh, I'm going to have a blast with this...

On 8/30/2020 at 7:56 PM, Shainen Sheepdog said:

@Hinckley, thanks for another great game.  Well played scum!

@Kristel , I kept hoping the MVP would swoop in and smack the other Townies in the head and get them thinking more. I guess the move and subsequent contractor appointments pulled your focus a bit. Not a good idea for a host to try and rely on one person to save the Town. Probably another indication I should've ignored the cups and split up the Scum team of super experience, or at least reduced their numbers by one. You did call out Pandora for knowing about a non-aformentioned framer/tailor floating around. And you were the only one to stay off the Marlowe wagon. I had high hopes! But, you can lead a horse to water... I think Marlowe was doomed besides you stopping by and adding some clarity.

On 8/30/2020 at 8:42 PM, Darkdragon said:

All the random cameos on the last day was pretty fun.

On 8/31/2020 at 10:09 AM, jimmynick said:

I was shocked to learn it was several people, not one!

Yes, it wasn't all me. But, it says something that several people thought it was.

On 8/30/2020 at 9:16 PM, Darkdragon said:

I never thought my baby dragon mafia would go this far. Hey Bricklink, where is my commission??

I'm still waiting on my FABULAND pieces and figure commission check.

On 8/31/2020 at 1:49 AM, Tariq j said:

Thanks for letting me play. That was a lot of fun. I loved all the appearances from the dragons and the inbred forum jerks 

I will always laugh when I see Ethan and Vincent. It may be my favorite title ever, and it was @Bob 's idea to do it.

On 8/31/2020 at 5:42 AM, Corrina Cow said:

Bloodrayne was a really good name for one, I'll give you that.  They asked poor Fazit why his name didn't end in M and it turns out the host was exposing all the 'bad' dragons (don't google that, kids) by giving them names that didn't.

Are we forgetting about Lully?

On 8/31/2020 at 6:48 AM, Mobley Mouse said:

I think I’m now the anti-shadows. I haven’t won a game of fibula day mafia yet...

 

*fabuland!

We'll get you there eventually...or not.

On 8/31/2020 at 7:06 AM, Chromeknight said:

Meh, someone has to die. And I was an easy lynch, But I was saddened to see no one (besides BulldogDanny) doing any proper voting analysis. 

Right! I know I went off about it for a while, but it's nice to hear someone else say it.

On 8/31/2020 at 8:59 AM, Leatrix Lamb said:

You can't always get lucky I guess after Becka Bulldog and Barty Bear.

I believe Benicia Bear ( @Pandora ) was Bartholomew Bearbutt's head.

On 8/31/2020 at 8:59 AM, Leatrix Lamb said:

 I agree with what @Darkdragon said about the emotion you manage to convey with these figures. I regret not playing the Forest III and the first iteration of this one. Not playing the first one made my head spin a bit with the whole concept, so I'm not too happy with how I played day one. I tried to be active and make sense of the mechanics, but I just ended up confused and I feel this made me look scummy. I also love that was anonymous (even though time zones must have given me away) and that it doesn't rely too heavily on PM activity. As I said to you in PM, I'd do away with PMing for the town altogether. However, private communication can hurt the town as well, as this game goes to show. Overall, I think the town tried to rely a lot on NA results, which isn't as useful when they're all one-shot actions. I think one of the biggest benefits we got from the open setup was that we knew which roles were in town's hands, so we could more easily plan by guessing who held which role, especially on the later days.

Thank you! Appreciate all the compliments about getting emotion out of the characters. I did try a game with no PMs for the Town and it made everybody crabby. That's one of the reason I made these Trickster options Role Madness as an incentive for The Trickster to hand out roles to everybody. In the first game, she tried to keep it to just a few players, to not implicate herself as Trickster, also there are some people who hate playing Vanilla. And while that irks me, I wanted to keep the players engaged. I gave the Scum a pep talk at the beginning about playing an open setup game because it bit the Scum team in FABUpunk! I in the ass, but I should've given the rest of the players a little pep talk too about not trusting people just because their results are verifiable.

22 hours ago, Benicia Bear said:

  Some of you were better winners than others too.

If you're referring to @Shadows , I would say that he engaged in tasteful and appropriate oinking.

22 hours ago, Benicia Bear said:

I was a team of just one, after all. I chose my roles for plausible deniability for the role of Trickster, and I ignored any absorbed roles and eschewed the kill when it became available. I wanted to move seamlessly through the game as a townie, trying her best, which is why I had those conversations with my "trusted" friends, for instance to make sure they knew I was commuting (so you don't waste your action on me!) but more so nobody could say that it was a convenient claim the next day.

I realized on Night Four that you were setting up the perfect long game...in a very short game. My fault.

22 hours ago, Benicia Bear said:

Being accused of being the Trickster for posting that I had received the Baby Dwagon Lullaby action was frustrating. That, unfortunately, made me more defensive and had an impact on my later game.

Oh God, that was frustrating for me too. It was almost a carbon copy of what happened to you in the first game, except this time based on 100% false information. I think this was another point where the Town (and Scum) got hung up on an assumption about the mechanics. Even when it was resolved, they turned on Franczeska Fox ( @Umbra-Manis ) for forgetting he had been given a notification about the Baby Dwagon Swumbew Pawty. I found it equally frustrating that this seemed to be a leading factor in his lynch.

But your point about there being too many Scum to misdirect the Day thread conversation is very well taken and something I forgot to consider. As much as I was seeing them slip up and call each other out on it, that doesn't leave much of a pattern for the Town to follow if none of them ever gets lynched or night-killed.

22 hours ago, Benicia Bear said:

Oh Hinckle-Stinckle I do love you and your beautiful, crazy games. All the discussions, all the planning, me asking endless questions about what would happen with roles a and b in the context of absorbing x and using y and all that guff - it was exhaustingly wonderful, thank you. Your hosting is, in my opinon, the best mafia game hosting we have, and continues to improve each time. 

I would like to point out, in reference to the highlighted segments, all the options you dropped for each day were crazy, and night five's actions were really not all that crazy by comparison! So yes, it was ridiculous to think I'd pick up on it, especially when you'd been telling me about how much better you were at not messing with things!  

Day Five really... yeah it was quite an unpleasant sensation really, going from thinking I might have a chance with two townies (who I thought were Gilford and probably Parvani), to quite quickly the penny dropping and basically feeling a bit like a punching bag, so it was a really crap way to end the game.  I am grateful to have had this role and to be so weirdly involved in the game mechanics and I love your MOCs, photography, comics, sense of humour and the time you give to produce all this, so thank you Hinckley, for being a wonderful host of a wonderful game.   

Oh, thank you. I feel fortunate that the cups chose you for the Trickster in the first iteration and very happy that you wanted to give it another go after not being able to really do too much with it the first time. Thank you so much for putting 100% in to both games and helping me figure out what the hell I was even asking you to do. The things I think I can will my players to do by just thinking about it and wishing it is abundant. I really need to revisit my planning so I don't have to wish that the balance will be fixed by magical epiphanies from the players. Two major things would've changed had I remembered the mechanic about the Scum getting assigned the Vigilante. 1. There would have been at least two extra Townies. 2. You wouldn't have given Corrina Cow (Shadows) a killing role two Days in a row. Imagine my eye roll (at myself) when I got the role assignments on Day Four and Corrina was the vigilante again. I felt dirty sending his role PM each time and yet it didn't trigger my memory of a note I wrote before I started putting together the different setups.

I'll go on and on later about the Balance, Mechanics and Trickster, but just wanted to spread some joy and celebrate the positive energy that the game produced for me and seemed to, also, for the players.

[KotZ]

I'm gonna be honest, your rebuild is 100 times better than the original.

[Shadows]

1 hour ago, Hinckley said:

Dear Lord. Did that not ping you when she had a perfect definition of Anarchist??

That was just good googling, I expected others to do it, so being accurate was important to maintain my ability to *ahem* help the town.

1 hour ago, Hinckley said:

Shadows is the Kathleen Turner of Mafia.

I think I'm ok with this.

1 hour ago, Hinckley said:

Are we forgetting about Lully?

Yep.

1 hour ago, Hinckley said:

If you're referring to @Shadows , I would say that he engaged in tasteful and appropriate oinking.

Oh no, it was thoroughly tasteless. It may have made me laugh harder in mafia than I had in a long time. I've been told it was 8.5 years.

I appreciate this comment though because it gives me a chance to reiterate something I said privately and have said since, I really started to feel bad about some of the scummy elements of mafia at one point. Like, REALLY bad. I don't mind the general deception, that is absolutely required to get the job done, but some of the emotional side bothers me a bit. I think it was because of the amount of roleplay, the characters all became real people, not just nicknames on a screen. And then the final day came and I got over it.

On 8/31/2020 at 5:03 PM, Benicia Bear said:

Being accused of being the Trickster for posting that I had received the Baby Dwagon Lullaby action was frustrating. That, unfortunately, made me more defensive and had an impact on my later game.

To this day, I don't understand the trickster role, but I especially didn't then. Is everything just absorbed, or is it optional or are only good/neutral things allowed to happen or what? We wanted to kill the trickster for a long time and if I had thought it was possible to do so at night, we would have tried much earlier, but I was convinced it couldn't be done and required a lynch. I used that lullaby clarification to defend you in a way that I thought would help gain your trust and then the good roles kept coming my way, so there was no point in even trying to kill you yet. When Holbrook knew you were the commuter and I didn't, I knew the trust was gone, but it didn't matter by then.

On 8/31/2020 at 5:03 PM, Benicia Bear said:

I would like to say that the conversations with @Corrina Cow were really nice (I know that's an odd thing to say, but it's true), and I truly loved how you played her character, even in PMs. I think you played the best in your team, so congratulations on a game well played.

Aw, you're too kind. It was the conversations with you that made me feed bad about being scum, albeit not enough to stop, so it's safe to say it was a two-way street and a very different mafia experience for me. Thank you for that.

[Pandora]

18 hours ago, Hinckley said:

That's one of the reason I made these Trickster options Role Madness as an incentive for The Trickster to hand out roles to everybody. In the first game, she tried to keep it to just a few players, to not implicate herself as Trickster

I'm right here..

I was going to do the same again this game on day two, and then everyone got their knickers in a twist about the Baby Dwagon stuff, and it was no longer feasible.

18 hours ago, Hinckley said:

If you're referring to @Shadows , I would say that he engaged in tasteful and appropriate oinking.

I wasn't; I agree, he did.

18 hours ago, Hinckley said:

I realized on Night Four that you were setting up the perfect long game...in a very short game. My fault.

Yes goddamnit, all your fault!    

18 hours ago, Hinckley said:

But your point about there being too many Scum to misdirect the Day thread conversation is very well taken and something I forgot to consider. As much as I was seeing them slip up and call each other out on it, that doesn't leave much of a pattern for the Town to follow if none of them ever gets lynched or night-killed.

I think DLL/Bartosz said it on the deadboard also, and it is an important point. When you seemingly have some active townies (Holbrook, Corrina and I'd like to think myself) who aren't actually townies directing the scumhunt for their own ends, then there's the tendency for people to not want to derail what they see as the genuine town organisation, I guess. 

18 hours ago, Hinckley said:

I feel fortunate that the cups chose you for the Trickster in the first iteration and very happy that you wanted to give it another go after not being able to really do too much with it the first time. Thank you so much for putting 100% in to both games and helping me figure out what the hell I was even asking you to do.

It was a genuine pleasure. I've already said this to you: I don't think I can return to the role again, but if you'd like a co-host to plan a crazy game with, I'm your gal.  

 

17 hours ago, Shadows said:

To this day, I don't understand the trickster role, but I especially didn't then. Is everything just absorbed, or is it optional or are only good/neutral things allowed to happen or what? We wanted to kill the trickster for a long time and if I had thought it was possible to do so at night, we would have tried much earlier, but I was convinced it couldn't be done and required a lynch. 

Everything is absorbed, so nothing works. Which makes it quite complicated to pick a path through a role madness game, where screwy things could happen if I'd been targeted by the right (or wrong) actions. I absorbed the Baby Dwagon Lullaby you sent, but I also got a "proper" role PM to say that I went and sang a lullaby, so that whole debacle was super irritating when I'd deliberately been very careful. I absorbed Bixby's protection and Parvani's deflection and Rutherford's posthumous watch but never used them (nor wanted to). I was only a little sad nobody tried to kill me, that's always a tough one to explain why you're not dead when all the roles and targets are on the table, and my strategy didn't involve killing anyone, well, until the end at least. 

17 hours ago, Shadows said:

Aw, you're too kind. It was the conversations with you that made me feed bad about being scum, albeit not enough to stop, so it's safe to say it was a two-way street and a very different mafia experience for me. Thank you for that.

I'm glad you had a different experience, but I don't think you need to feel bad at all. My conversations with you were entirely self-serving, even if they were very enjoyable, and even if that were not the case, duplicity is a necessary part of the game.

 

[Fugazi]

 

On 8/31/2020 at 5:03 PM, Benicia Bear said:

That is a very kind thing to say, thank you. Congratulations on your win. You ended up with a PGO at the end because of Corrina's message to me about keeping on giving you the benefit of the doubt. It was one of those situations where someone I had just realised was scummy was saying scummy things about you and my view turned upside down and considering there couldn't possibly be more than three remaining scum (hahahaha!  ) that put you weirdly into the town box with @Gilford Goat (who I thought would enjoy being a bomb) so you got the PGO. At least after giving you all those roles you didn't like (I thought they were ok, actually) I didn't give you the shit-shoveller or sleepwalker role!  

Don't worry, I was mostly complaining for the sake of it, especially since your role selection was (in my mind at least) a mirror of my scummyness. I do appreciate that you gave me PGO instead of Sleepwalker, but of course it was a hidden role and I didn't know at the time.

 

On 8/31/2020 at 5:03 PM, Benicia Bear said:

Day Five really... yeah it was quite an unpleasant sensation really, going from thinking I might have a chance with two townies (who I thought were Gilford and probably Parvani), to quite quickly the penny dropping and basically feeling a bit like a punching bag, so it was a really crap way to end the game.

I'm sorry that we made you feel that way.  We should probably have just ended it ASAP but I suppose we wanted to keep some conversation going during the last day.

 

On 8/31/2020 at 5:46 PM, Hinckley said:

Now, let's look at Parvani Poodle (Fugazi). Always voting late, so much so that he missed Day Two's vote. Not to mention, she actively refuses to put her fucking vote on a separate line so it's easier for me to find when tallying. That's Scummy! It's harder to find a Scummy pattern here. In the short amount of Days you had to analyze, she doesn't vote one Day, and what Scum would risk penalty votes. Votes off the wagons the next, and by then it's too late on Day Four to catch anything else. So, it doesn't look incredibly Scummy until you look at her vote on Day One coupled with her Action on Night One. She voted for Gilford Goat (Trekkie99) because of his supposed "let's claim, bitches!" post and left it there despite Mobley Mouse (Chromeknight) being closer to a lynch. Then, she chose to Bus Drive Gilford Goat (Trekkie99) with Caladon Crocodile (Darkdragon) supposedly believing the former Scum and the latter Town. Great plan. In what fucking world would the Scum kill the second-highest vote getter on Night One? Honestly, this should've gotten Parvani Poodle (Fugazi) lynched. That might have turned on Gilford Goat (Trekkie99) after she flipped Scum, but still, this deserved a lot more scutiny than it got. The move itself may be a Townie move, but if you have a Bus Driver Action and it actually ends up affecting the Scum kill, that's amazing. The first thing a Townie should do, hold onto that info as opposed to blurting it out immediately and then shedding a bunch of crocodile tears over it. In this situation, a Townie should've let the conversation last for a while to try and garner any information that the Scum team might slip up with having their kill target bus driven. You may think this seems improbable, but this game is filled with slip-ups from the Scum team, indicating that they knew too much and they did get called out on that, but only by other Scum. And nobody else picked up on those instances. Voting for and then bus-driving the Scum kill target is an amazing feat for a Townie. 

The decision to drive and kill Caladon was a result of hasty planning (by me, not the rest of the Scum team), with me not being around much on Day-Night 1 and hardly being able to keep up with the public and private discussions. So yeah, claiming to have targeted a killed player could have been an automatic lynch, but it didn't happen this time.

Holding onto a night result was risky, as each single day people would be accused of waiting for others to claim first. I seem to remember that some even thought that I had waited too long before revealing my Bus Driving targets, so you never know how one's decisions will sit with others! That's why Mafia is such a great game after all.

[Hinckley]

On 9/1/2020 at 5:47 PM, Shadows said:

To this day, I don't understand the trickster role,

Don't worry, neither apparently does the Trickster:

On 9/2/2020 at 11:46 AM, Pandora said:

Everything is absorbed, so nothing works.

Incorrect. It worked and then was absorbed. That was one of the corrections I made from the first game to the second. In the first game, the frame didn't work when Fergus Fox/Kristel targeted you which painted you clearly as The Trickster from Day Two and unfortunately, you didn't stand a chance at making it passed that. So the Actions did work on you this time, and you absorbed a One-Shot. You were bulletproof to make up for times when you were killed. In the second game, it worked more the way the wiki defines Absorber with you being able to absorb blocks.

Anyway, excellent segue, now for my thoughts on balance and the Trickster:

Thoughts on Balance and the Trickster

Here is the main idea of the Trickster:

1. A Neutral who, like a Serial Killer, has to kill everyone, but doesn't have a kill
2. Provides the "balance" ( ) of a new setup every day and people getting different roles
3. Give something different and challenging for players to react to every Day.
4. Instead of killing, absorbs roles that target it, to build an arsenal of one-shot Actions to mess with things further.

That's the basic concept of a role that has been tortured into existence and twice now attempted to force to work. Parts of it work great while others are still problematic, despite multiple efforts to make the role balanced and functional in an active game. Obviously, this creates all sorts of traps and pitfalls that make the balance swing wildly and me to get stuck in paradoxes and trying to solve conundrums I never foresaw happening, but did. Here are the ways the Trickster differed from version 1 to version 2, the former being under-powered and the latter being over-powered. Perhaps if I ever try this again (which I probably will) there will be a happy medium.

1. Absorption

• In version one, the Trickster's absorption caused the Action being used on her to fail. This caused the first Action used on her to completely give her away.
• In version two, the Trickster's absorption happened while the Action being used on her succeeded. Perhaps I'm reading her feedback wrong but it doesn't seem like she even realized this was the case. In order for the absorption to not be a dead giveaway, I followed the role on the wiki more closely, allowing the Action to succeed while she absorbed it. In order for her to absorb a kill, I made her bulletproof.

I came up with the idea of the Trickster absorbing roles during Pirates Mafia III when we were all confused about why three people had been blocked when there was no kill and the people we were lynching, who had been blocked, kept flipping Town. In reading about the Absorber, one of the articles on the wiki talked about this being a popular option for Serial Killers, giving them the ability to use other Actions besides their kill to help them through the game. I had already thought of making the Trickster an Absorber and felt validated by the wiki saying it had been added to the arsenal of Serial Killers in the games associated with the wiki.

2. Trickster assigning themselves a role.

• In version one, the Trickster could not assign herself a role. While I wanted the Trickster to be able to give everyone a chance to have a one-shot Action, this prevented her from being able to do so without implicating herself. If everybody started claiming and figured out she was the only one who never got a role, that would be as blatant as the unsuccessful result Fergus Fox/Kristel got when she tried to frame her.
• In version two, the Trickster could assign herself a role, but only if she assigned everybody a role. This made things much more complicated for me to create a role for everybody that wouldn't cause an imbalance or overpowering on either side. When the Scum started getting the vigilante, this caused overpowering on the Scum side anyway, even if it did wrap up the game quickly for us. Otherwise, we might still be playing and it worked out since I need to start concentrating on my business again. Unlike the Scum, the Trickster needed to choose between the role she assigned herself and one she absorbed. She couldn't use two on one Night.

This was the source of a lot of discussion about who was the Trickster based on who was getting roles and who could've decided to not use their role and not be detected or who got a non-mandatory role, or who got one of the "less important roles." Not a great way to find Scum! Anyway, I've already gone on about that. The Scum had the ability to use the Trickster Action along with their factional Action. I treated the Trickster as a mass-inventor. Typically, when I have an Inventor in a game, I let a player use their Action at the same time as a one-shot Action. If I were to make the Scum choose between their factional Action and the one-shot Action they received from the Trickster, this may give Scum away the same way the vigilante switching to a strongarm modifier might. I think I may consider doing this in the future as, again, the more Scum the Trickster is aware of, the better position they have to keep the balance even and achieve their win condition of killing everyone or successfully bringing the numbers down to 1:1:1.

3. Can the Trickster assign themselves a kill?

• Version 1: No. Couldn't assign herself any role
• In the second version, she could assign herself the Vigilante role, only every third Night after the second Night. It was also strongarm.

So, if you're picking up the trend, the Trickster went from under-powered and somewhat easy to pinpoint to the overcompensation of having every tool possible to avoid detection and be diabowicaw. I tried really hard to be balanced the first time and it blew up in the Trickster's face after the first Night so I tried to make up for that in the second round by making her extra Trickster-y and almost impervious to detection. There have been a lot of comments about this, in the game and on the writeboards. When Shadows makes a comment that something in my game is "over-powered," "flawed," "unbalanced," or "potentially broken," I have a visceral reaction. Something I'll need to discuss with my therapist. When Shadows considers the Trickster being able to give themselves a killing Action and deems it "flawed" it takes every fiber of my being not to PM him and say, "But why? What about X,Y,X?" but that would be irresponsible as it would confirm the Trickster could do so, he didn't have all the information and engaging at that point would be entirely self-serving. But, the reason I think the Trickster should be able to orchestrate some killing is, again, to have a shot at attaining their win condition. Here's where I start to wonder about the comments about the absorption blocking the Action and other potential giveaways for the Trickster, some things give the non-Town roles away. Like if a player is blocked and there's no Scum kill, that kind of gives that Scum away. Yes, a one-woman Neutral team needs some extra powers, but there has to be some way for the Town to detect something being off if she's on a tear. Should it be abilites the host gives her or her game play and strategy that get her (or whoever, in the future) out of those predicaments? I have a lot of potential solutions to some of these questions, Shadows had a really great idea, but I think I might leave the Trickster out of my game and add something else that's new and complicated. This setup creates a lot of fucking work for the host, I must say. Probably a lot for the Trickster too, which is why I kept calling her a co-host. 

4. Any other way for the Trickster to avoid detection?

• In the first version, no. Just a bright beacon of "I'm the Trickster" when an Action targeting her failed.
• In the second version, she had a "ninja mode" she could turn on or off if she wanted to be tricky. I didn't want to make her a permanent Ninja because then if someone else was trying to verify her and she did an Action the way she said she would, a Tracker or Watcher wouldn't see her, leaving her to explain why she wasn't verified doing what she said she would do. Again, a pretty strong power. That makes her an Absorber, Bulletproof, potential Killer, and Ninja if she wants to be. Think about how this game went, though. 60% (I'm guessing) of the conversation revolved around what the Trickster might be able to do. If she didn't have all of these ways to hide, she would've been found out. Turns out she did get found out, early on, just with completely false assumptions.

Trickster, fun. I do love the role. It just fills me with anxiety that Shadows doesn't like it it might break the game or cause a wild or potentially unfair swing in balance.

Mistakes

So, I feel like I cause three Townie deaths. 2 for sure, the other is questionable.

1. Franceska Fox / Umbra-Manis—Benicia Bear / Pandora was justifiably frustrated that the Day Three conversation was revolving around her being the Trickster due to her getting a result from the Baby Dwagon Wuwwaby and nobody else reporting getting a result from the host. One of the other Baby Dwagon Actions was blocked and Hyacinth Hippo / Bob didn't get hers in on time. I was telling Benicia Bear / Pandora to be patient and she trying to get Omrow involved, but I figured once Franczeska Fox / Umbra-Manis showed up he would confirm that he also got verification from me that he had the Baby Dwagon Swumbew Pawty and the whole debacle would be over. Franceska Fox / Umbra-Manis showed up and was the first person to vote for Benicia Bear / Pandora. I felt that the Trickster had been unfairly found out in the first game, so I shared Pandora's frustration. Especially since I went out of my way to tell her she had sung a wuwwaby to baby dwagons, so that her info would match what Franceska Fox / Umbra-Manis received. @Pandora I still don't understand why getting the result that you did sing a lullaby threw your game off. Does this have something to do with you not realizing that absorbed Actions would be successful? Either way, I spent my day on this and didn't get much else done, so I was feeling frustrated as well so I reached out to Franceska Fox / Umbra-Manis to remind him he had received a verification. His turnaround in thread was one of the factors that got him lynched and it made me feel meddlesome. In the mean time, when role PMs went out Bartosz Bulldog / @Dannylonglegs asked if his target for the Baby Dwagon whatever he had would give his target a result and I told her yes. Well, she never came to Benicia Bear / Pandora's aid either! The mistake I felt I made here was stepping in to assist Benicia Bear / Pandora instead of just letting it play out. I feel like it caused Franczeska Fox / Umbra-Manis to be lynched and Benicia might not even have been lynched otherwise. Again, however, this shows how discussion of the Trickster mechanics de-railed an entire game day.

2. Hyacinth Hippo / Bob and Emeric Elephant / KotZ, especially the latter. I realize that converting the Vigilante to a strongarm modifier for the Scum factional kill would giveaway Scum to the Trickster, but I think that's fine. The Trickster can't come out and announce how she knows that (in this case) Corrina Cow / Shadows is Scum and she is to achieve her win condition, she needs to learn who Scum are. One thing I tried to do, which is on my list to improve next time, is put multiple investigator options on the table for Benicia Bear / Pandora to aid in her Scum hunt. I think I might force multiple investigations into the options in the future if I'm biting my nails over the balance, like I was in this game. But, like a fool, I couldn't read my own damn notes and let Corrina Cow / Shadows kill Hyacinth Hippo / Bob. There are two reasons I missed this. 1, the FPTSLBOOIA is not a Vigilante and 2, I ignored the list of changes because the first line says to convert the Investigator to a Role Cop, which is silly with everyone getting one-shot Actions. I forgot that the rest of the list had some valid ideas for balance in it. Here is the list at the top of my notes, under the role PMs:

*If Mafia draw “Investigator” it is treated as “Rolecop”
*If Mafia draw “Framer” it gives them the ability to “Frame/Tailor”
*If Mafia draws “Miller” it has no effect
*If Mafia draws “Vigilante” their factional kill becomes “Strongarm”

I often skipped over it and delved into all my list of setups and references for weird roles. If it had gone this way, the Scum would've had to work a lot harder and the Town would've had more time as I seriously doubt Benicia Bear / Pandora would've given Corrina Cow / Shadows Vigilante a kill again after there was a kill missing on Night Three. Again, I don't think this is unfair to the Scum as this information is not likely to make it to the Town. If the Trickster wants to see that Scum lynched, they will have to go about it another way. I also imagine that once the Trickster knows who some of the Scum are, they have to preserve them to get the balance where it needs to be for their win condition. I've been composing this post for several days and I need to confirm for Bob's game, so I'm going to leave it there.

On 9/2/2020 at 11:46 AM, Pandora said:

I think DLL/Bartosz said it on the deadboard also, and it is an important point. When you seemingly have some active townies (Holbrook, Corrina and I'd like to think myself) who aren't actually townies directing the scumhunt for their own ends, then there's the tendency for people to not want to derail what they see as the genuine town organisation, I guess. 

I feel like the Town needs to try to derail organization they see, or at least question it. If people are trusting others without verification, the entire Town has to know why. At least that's how I play Town and probably why my game is so annoying to people. I will never forget Bloodbrick and the Jesus Garden Club, trusting someone without verification can get the Town killed. If the Town sees a Town block forming and they're not part of it, they need to question it or try to verify it themselves, IMO. I think it's more rare for a Town block not to be infiltrated by Scum. If a Townie is complacent with sitting back and letting others do the work for them then, in my opinion, they're doing it wrong.

On that note, maybe I'm finally ready to stick a pin in this game? I really do appreciate everyone for playing both iterations of this and for everyone's patience and hard work. I hope you all had fun, it sounds like you did. I did! Great job Scum and Trickster! And thanks again, Pandora for graciously tackling a complicated and bonkers role.

 

15 hours ago, Fugazi said:

The decision to drive and kill Caladon was a result of hasty planning (by me, not the rest of the Scum team), with me not being around much on Day-Night 1 and hardly being able to keep up with the public and private discussions. So yeah, claiming to have targeted a killed player could have been an automatic lynch, but it didn't happen this time.

Holding onto a night result was risky, as each single day people would be accused of waiting for others to claim first. I seem to remember that some even thought that I had waited too long before revealing my Bus Driving targets, so you never know how one's decisions will sit with others! That's why Mafia is such a great game after all.

I read your PM like five times and almost PMed you back "Wait, you want Caladon to die?" But, I didn't. The words were there. But, I totally thought it would get you lynched. I thought the discussion on the board was leaning towards letting Gilford die, because none of you were on Caladon Crocodile / Daarkdragon's list of suspects. So, I thought you would verify her and start trying to lynch those on her list, or something like that. The way it turned out was highly questionable, but in the end, nobody really questioned it too much, so who am I to criticize?

[Pandora]

18 hours ago, Hinckley said:

Don't worry, neither apparently does the Trickster:

Yikes.  

18 hours ago, Hinckley said:

Incorrect. It worked and then was absorbed.

I honestly don't know why I said that when I even said to you in the game that I wanted to be tracked, so I knew it worked, plus Rutherford even resurrected his bardic self to give the Watch result on me. Clearly my brain only works part-time.

18 hours ago, Hinckley said:

Perhaps I'm reading her feedback wrong but it doesn't seem like she even realized this was the case.

See above. I did, I just said something stupid in this thread.  

18 hours ago, Hinckley said:

 @Pandora I still don't understand why getting the result that you did sing a lullaby threw your game off. Does this have something to do with you not realizing that absorbed Actions would be successful?

No, I knew absorbed actions would be successful as it happened the very first night with the Lullaby and I understood that had happened, I just spoke wrongly earlier when I replied to Shadows. It threw me off because I feel like there's a history of it happening to me.  Whether or not that's actually true is another matter, but thinking back over many games, being falsely accused of anything does sometimes set me off like that.  I will say, for metagame purposes, that I don't always react like that, so it isn't necessarily a town/scum/neutral tell. 

Anyway, genuinely thank you for such a fantastically crazy and wonderful role, and for hosting a beautiful and hilarious game. 

[Hinckley]

On 9/5/2020 at 10:12 AM, Pandora said:

Yikes.

Sorry, the only thing I was referring to was your mis-statement about the absorbed roles not working. I'm relieved it was just mis-stated as I would feel really bad if you didn't realize that. My fear is that the role is too complicated and too much work for the player. Do you have any advice for how to improve it from this round?

I would love to co-host a game with you! We should definitely start working on a concept.

[jimmynick]

It does seem that the Trickster role is a huge undertaking, and not really one to be assigned randomly and so is already a quasi-cohost, as you've already observed. I'm glad I didn't have that headache.

[Hinckley]

1 hour ago, jimmynick said:

It does seem that the Trickster role is a huge undertaking, and not really one to be assigned randomly and so is already a quasi-cohost, as you've already observed. I'm glad I didn't have that headache.

Def did a couple of games that involved picking Actions that had pseudonyms. I'm thinking about potentially running a game like that, but different. But, that would allow me to be trickstery without having to put so much on a player.