Dragonfire

I think this is quite misleading, especially the bit about me. You say this: I take it that you're referring to myself (along with Anne and Joshua). Yet earlier you said this: You're clearly taking the opinion here that I might be scum and it's essentially a 50:50. So why did you say that "best case scenario, we've identified three scum" when one cannot possibly identify my alignment in this case? We'll never know whether Joshua discarded a scum or a town card, so how could you ever be "sure" I was scum? As Christina said earlier, this is misguided at best and deliberately misleading at worst. Good thinking. I'm not assuming anything at this point. I agree with you on Lindsey, but not on Anne. How can you still advocate installing Anne as TCC again when she could very probably be the Godfather, which is exactly what the scum want! Ping. If Ralph is scum, then Anne is definitely town. Why would a scum risk confirming a townie when town only has two investigations and there's no guarantee a scum will be mayor again? It's a perfect opportunity to "confirm" the godfather as town and help scum win. It seems to me as if the majority of people support Joshua over Ralph and still like Anne, which I find disturbing - it ought to be a 50:50 thing...

Well Edward's analysis is quite informative, actually. If both Ralph and Joshua, regardless of alignment, received three mafia cards, then there is a total of 5 town cards and 3 mafia cards remaining in the deck. If whoever is scum out of the two of them discarded a town card, then there are 4 town and 4 mafia cards remaining. Either way, another draw of three mafia cards is now exceedingly unlikely, and so unless both of our new government are scum, it's likely that a town policy will be passed today. And this game was never going to be a regular mafia game. We literally can't trust anyone and I think that was the whole idea (alignments of the dead not being revealed, and possible scum getting investigations).

I think that whichever of the two is scum, we're in quite a good position as town right now. If Ralph is town, then we've just foiled the scum's plans to install their Godfather as a trusted townie - I would definitely not advise putting Anne up as TCC again. If Ralph is scum, he won't have achieved the result he intended, since we're not either writing Joshua off as scum or trusting Ralph. If you are town, then yes, you did.

I'm pretty sure Edward is assuming that since one of Ralph and Joshua is mafia, they probably discarded a town card. He also said this: Even so, it's also highly possible that whichever one of our previous two mayors is mafia isn't lying and actually did receive three mafia cards, in which case Edward is mistaken in his analysis. I don't think it's a definite scumtell, but it does raise questions as to how much Edward actually knows.

Now I see where our thinking diverges. I wasn't aware that the Godfather would investigate as town in this style of game. Bob, could you please clarify whether this is the case? If the Godfather does investigate as town, then yes, your suggestion is more valid than mine.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. When I said "I may have unwittingly assisted scum by asking Ralph to check Joshua" I was referring to the possibility that Ralph is scum and I, an unsuspecting townie, unwittingly assisted him in his ploy to throw doubt on the investigation result on Anne by checking Joshua. The second of your two stated possibilities (assisting scum-Joshua) doesn't make sense. How would outing a scum be assisting them? I think it's you who's either not paying attention or deliberately "stuffing things up". Also, I didn't "get it backwards", as you put it. My logic was thus: assuming Ralph is town, if he received one town and two scum cards, then clearly Anne must have discarded a scum card and therefore must be scum, also making Joshua scum. Hence there would be no point for him to check either of them, since from his point of view they would be confirmed scum, so he should check an unknown, Patricia or Lindsey for instance. But if town-Ralph received three scum cards, it wouldn't tell us anything about Anne's alignment (or Joshua's) and so he should check Joshua to either confirm or refute the investigation result. Of course, if Ralph is scum none of these things apply. You seem to think that he should have investigated Joshua if he got a town and two scum cards - I disagree, in that case both Joshua and Anne would be confirmed scum and so investigating them would be a waste of an investigation. By the way, that probability analysis looks pretty good for us. Hopefully we'll pass a town policy today, which is statistically the most likely option.

I may have unwittingly assisted scum by asking Ralph to check Joshua, but I stand by my decision. I'm not going to pick sides at this point: one of you is lying, I don't know who and we have no means of verifying unless we pass two more scum policies and one of you gets killed. I find both of you quite scummy atm actually.

Either way, it's almost impossible that both yesterday and the day before involved the mayor being given three Mafia policies. Someone is scum between Ralph and Joshua, and they almost certainly discarded a town policy. If Joshua is scum, it doesn't necessarily make Anne scum, but she could be the Godfather

I don't see anything wrong with voting Yes to this, so I will do just that. Ralph, get in here ASAP! If you did not receive three scum cards, then please check Patricia or Lindsey. If you did, then please check Joshua.

Why don't we ask him to investigate Joshua? That might shed some light in Joshua's report on Anne (unless all three are scum, of course)

This doesn't apply today obviously because everyone was going to vote for Anne anyway. The worrying thing to me is: what if Josh is scum and deliberately discarded a town card, then "investigated" another scum - or worse, the Godfather - thereby ensuring that we would all trust the person entirely... I guess if a Town policy is passed today then that will give me more confidence that Anne (and by extension, Josh) are town.

Seems like I was just too late to vote... As for next day's TCC, that should depend on the mayor. I'm for allowing the mayor to choose whoever he/she wants, to let us get a read on them.

We need Lindsey to get in here and nominate her first

Unless Lindsey receives three scum policies, that is...

Hang on a minute, doesn't it say in the rules / C&D thread that you had to post your decision publicly after a communal discussion? Anyway, Anne is likely to be town (unless of course you're scum and faked the result) Where does it say that? It only says that the Mayor cannot be the previous day's Mayor/TCC, not that the TCC can't.

I was given two Mafia policies. Either Joshua (regardless of alignment) was given three Mafia policies, or he deliberately discarded a town one, in which case he is scum. I'm sure that he'll claim the former, rather than accuse me of lying about my policy choice.

While I can see why you're voting No, Christina, I feel that constant failing of governments would only lead to instability and would help scum. If none of you have a problem with Joshua's choice of me, then you should vote Yes to efficiently choose a government. Only if you actually disagree with a mayor's choice of TCC or distrust the person in question should these measures be taken IMO. From my point of view, I know I'm town so me being TCC would be immensely preferable to a person of unknown alignment being TCC, as they could well be scum. As I said before, switching governments helps scum, as they benefit from governments failing and they can vote tactically to prevent townies from becoming the TCC (since they know who is town and who isn't)

Avalanche smiles as he sees Heckz come in, recognising him instantly, "What mess have you got yourself into this time?" he inquires with a chuckle.

Entry A - 1 point Entry B - 1 point Entry J - 1 point

Will we learn Betsy's alignment now? Also, I will vote Yes, obviously.

But the chance of all three cards being Town is so slim that anyone who is confirmed to have passed on two Town cards almost certainly discarded a scum card and therefore is likely to be Town. Also, a scum Mayor might have wanted to discard the town card and say that he was given three scum cards, so that a scum policy would be passed.

The thing is, even if Edward is lying and there were two Town cards to start with, there would simply be no point for a scum Mayor to send forth one of each if he knew the TCC was a townie. A smart scum Mayor would discard the scum policy, knowing that it wouldn't be enacted anyway, and thereby earn himself towncred for sending forward too town policies. Therefore unless both Edward and Lindsey are scum (an almost nonexistent possibility, as I have already discussed) it would not make sense for scum-Edward to lie, and thus he is probably telling the truth. Edit: two not too. Seems my autocorrect betrayed me

Thanks for the clarification! I initially would be inclined to agree with this, but there's something else I just thought of. Say a town Mayor picks a scum to be the TCC (not referring to either Lindsey or Edward, just making a general hypothesis). Then say the town Mayor is given Town, Mafia, Mafia and selects Town and Mafia to be given to the TCC. If the scum TCC was then to select the Mafia policy, then the Mayor could reveal that they sent a Town policy to the TCC, thus confirming the TCC as scum for choosing a mafia policy. Therefore a scum TCC, upon being sent one of each type of policy, is effectively forced to choose the Town policy to avoid confirming themselves as scum (provided the Mayor is town). If the Mayor is scum, this changes things and they could lie to back their teammate up. To conclude, I don't think this "solidifies" Lindsey as town, since if Edward is town Lindsey would choose the Town policy regardless of her own alignment. What I think this does tell us for certain is that Edward and Lindsey are not both scum. And there you go, getting into WIFOM territory. Would a scum Mayor pick a scum to be the TCC? Clever, or too risky? Either way, as I said above it's definite that they are not both scum, and quite likely that Edward is town (since scum-Edward would have no reason to send on a Town policy to Lindsey unless he received two Town policies initially, which is very statistically unlikely since there are only 5 town policies to start with).

Quick question: is there anything to the policies except from their alignment? For instance, would the mayor be given three cards saying (for example) "Town, Town, Mafia" or would they be given three cards with actual, written policy statements on them? And would they both know for certain whether a particular policy is Town of Mafia?

The question is, how will the person even know whether the laws are town or scum? Do they have labels on? I'm going to vote Yes though, because I don't see the benefit in wasting time choosing someone else, and it seems like we're going to get nowhere until we try a "test run" of this whole policy business and see how it all works out. Probability-wise Lindsey is likely to be town, and I've come to the conclusion that in this sort of situation, we're all inexperienced. So I've expressed my concerns, but I'm not going to hinder the town by obstinately abstaining when we all need to work together to figure out what kind of odd situation we've got ourselves into.