The Godfather, Part 3 [Concluded]

[GeneralHankerchief]

Commentary. I think, despite ATPG's best efforts, this post will still take the cake for longest in the thread. Better luck next time!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Game Start

Godfather: Beefy187
Selected grunts: TevashSzat and White_eyes:D
Detective: seireikhaan
The Secret Weapon (one-time vigilante): 777Ares777

As previously mentioned I think a few times, Silver Rusher’s Godfather series was always my favorite. I particularly enjoyed both games, especially the second one, which was at one point the standard which all other games were measured against until it got lost with time. On a spur-of-the-moment decision about a month before the game started, I decided to try my hand at bringing the series back. I’ll spare you the details of what attracted me to the series in the first place as they have already been discussed at length.

Whenever I had control over the write-ups (the beginning scenes, the end of the mafia kills, the early lynches, etc.) I tried to be as faithful to the original as possible. This was doubly so in the prologue with more than a few references to the Godfather 2 prologue. Of course, nods to my predecessor weren’t enough. Although I pretty much have my own refined set of rules for my Mafia series, Silver played a different game with his set. For the most part I tried to mesh the two, although in some places I deferred to him (especially regarding strict deadlines, whereas I’m usually more relaxed and stagger round start/end times to be fairer to everybody.

Then, of course, there was the matter of the twist. Ares, playing the role of the nude unicyclist (I was originally debating just outright giving this role to Reenk Roink before deciding against it), was not just a standard vigilante, not even a one-time one. In both previous games, the Chief of Police was nearly impossible to remove, being unkillable at night and able to survive the lynches handily enough. I remember in Godfather 2, as mafia, I was always fretting about what to do about Divine Wind, the Chief of Police in that game (who ended up surviving). To make up for this supposed lack of balance, I decided to give Ares’s role the additional power of being able to kill the Chief of Police. Aside from balance issues, I also thought that it was just be really cool to throw the town for a loop when they see the CoP dead at night.

We had 28 players who signed up, the exact amount that the Godfather 2 had, which I considered a good omen. Also encouraging was the fact that I had three replacement players lined up (pevergreen, Ituralde, and Myrddraal, in the order that they expressed interest), the original cast didn’t seem to have very much WoG-bait at all (and, as a matter of fact, I did not have to remove one player for inactivity in this game, which I consider a huge accomplishment), and that Ichigo and Sasaki Kojiro, two longtime Mafia vets and good friends, returned to play.

Once that was all taken care of, I looked to random.org to give me my Godfather. The trusty site spat out Beefy187’s number, a very interesting choice. Beefy had been a longtime player but was (almost?) never a mafioso, and quite often he was lynchbait. Now that the pressure was on, we would all see how Beefy would be on the other side.

Beefy sent me his grunt choices: TevashSzat and White_eyes:D, to my surprise. Again, as a trademark of my conservative tactics in Mafia, I would have picked at least one veteran, if for no other reason than to get an influential voice on my side from the start. However, Beefy proved that he was smarter than me by making two excellent choices, one of whom was at his side for 11 rounds. Once I had his grunt choices, I waited the rest of the 24 hour period and the game began.

Day 1

Filled roles:
Godfather (Beefy)
Grunts (Tevash and White_eyes)

Because of the Chief of Police mechanics, not every role was filled from the start. It would be a gamebreaker if the Detective revealed on Day 1and got immunity at night (although one could argue that the town would eventually lynch him whether by a mafioso counter-revealing and sacrificing himself, or by the town simply cracking, but at that point I didn’t have enough faith in the town to take that chance). After I picked the Detective (seireikhaan), a couple of people, khaan included, PM’d me with the idea of planning to get the Detective in the CoP spot, which is when I made the decision to make all future CoP selections random.

Additionally, considering a big part of the nude unicyclist’s power was the ability to kill the Chief of Police, he wasn’t determined until after the election as well in the interests of fun.

Andres and TInCow both immediately lobbied for the role by making two very funny posts (loved the resume! ) promoting their “qualities” but then they immediately jokingly became two politicians going negative on each other, but were pretty much ignored by everybody else. The two real candidates were shlin28, who appealed to the players that didn’t post walls of text and weren’t generally considered veterans, and Reenk Roink, who was drafted largely by an effort of Sasaki and Ichigo because they knew his write-ups would be funny.

Also notable in this round was Sasaki’s traditional screwing with the town by claiming he had found a gamebreaking clue in my writeup and then quickly editing a series of his posts. After a little chat, he said he was glad to be back and wanted to see if anybody would bite. However, nobody really mentioned them, and Sasaki let his little effort be until a brief period in the midgame.

The CoP race was close, but eventually Reenk withdrew from the race by voting for shlin. Once I ended the round, random.org named khaan as my Detective (on the third try; the first two times I did it, the site spat back Tevash and White_eyes! ) and Ares as my nude unicyclist. The Godfather, Part 3 was officially on.

Chief of Police: shlin28

Day 2

Tevash kills Tratorix
White_eyes kills CountArach
khaan investigates TinCow
Song: “Karn Evil 9, First Impression, Part 2” by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer
Song explanation: Mainly chosen because of the opening lyrics: “Welcome back my friends/To the show that never ends/We’re so glad you could attend/Come inside, come inside” which refers to the Godfather series restarting and the entire Mafia cycle to a larger extent. Plus, I read the Wiki article for entire Karn Evil 9 song (which is something like 30 minutes long) and it said that it “tells the story of a world from which all manner of evil […] had been banished”, which I think ties in pretty well with the Gameroom of the series, considering Godfather 2 ended in a town victory. Finally, the song’s title had a few numbers in it, which was a small hint as to Beefy’s (or Beefy187’s) identity.

Much to my dismay, the mafia were considering offing both khaan and Ares in the first round but eventually switched over to CA and Tratorix, who has been having a string of bad luck in my recent games (two first-round deaths in a row now).

Andres stole Ichigo’s thunder by voting Sasaki first, which started a bandwagon against him. Ahh, just like old times. More interestingly though, our resident write-up analyzer TinCow read it and pointed to Beefy as the most likely candidate, despite the fact that his two grunts actually did it. TC’s pursuit of Beefy in the early rounds attracted some followers and this game was almost over before it started.

Another action with long-term implications was Sasaki’s questioning of Lord Winter, most specifically LW’s going after Seamus for being third on the Reenk election bandwagon last round. Sasaki called him out for calling it “incredibly suspicious”, even though LW has been paranoid about election bandwagons ever since I, as Godfather, was the benefactor of one way back in Godfather 1. Obviously Sasaki either wasn’t aware of or forgot about this and continued dogging LW.

In this round, though, it didn’t stick, and Ichigo was the victim of the random First Day of Voting Carousel of Doom.

Executed: Ichigo

Day 3

Tevash kills seireikhaan
White_eyes kills boudica
khaan investigates nobody (dead)
Song: “Perry Mason” by Ozzy Osbourne
Song explanation: This was the closest thing to a song about a Detective I could find, commemorating khaan’s early exit from the game.

This round was the start of the mafia copying old kill write-ups. Everybody caught, thanks to Gaius Scribonius Curio, the theft of one of his kills from Mafia VIII (boudica’s death), but Tevash killed khaan using the exact kill from Godfather 1, which nobody noticed. BTW, kudos to White_eyes for guessing that khaan was the Detective, even though it was Tevash by way of a random number generator that did him in.

The Perry Mason reference was what started the initial “let’s look at the songs” chorus, but everybody was way off and the subject was dropped until a couple of rounds later. After it died down, Sasaki went after Lord Winter hard, his first real lynch effort of the game. However, it took a while to catch on as the votes still went to Sasaki for no particular reason, as well as the fact that this was the round with rampant abstentions, so much so that I doubled the round length in an effort to get some more actual votes in there.

As it turns out, this was a major blessing for the mafia, as Beefy was in trouble for a lot of this round based off TinCow’s suspicions combined with the dreaded “well, it’s the early game and we don’t have a better target” sentiment. It was here when the backlash against Beefy began, as Reenk and Askthepizzaguy both took up the mantle as his defenders (Reenk’s user title, “defender of Beefy” made me giggle), wanting to let him live for a change. Terrible timing for the town as, of course, Beefy was the über-villain for this game. Beefy now had two allies that wielded a lot of influence over the greater town.

Due to the extended session, voting shifted over to Sasaki and Lord Winter. Secondarily of note is that Curio voted for White_eyes because of gut instinct (well, there’s another point for that kind of playstyle), Askthepizzaguy made his first big case of the game, against Curio, and that the groundwork for Sigurd’s eventual lynch was laid by numerous people pointing out his inactivity. However, Sigurd survived by the skin of his teeth and Lord Winter got the lynch in a move that would have major implications all the way up to the endgame.

Executed: Lord Winter

Day 4

Tevash kills nobody
White_eyes kills TinCow
Song: “Woke Up this Morning” by Alabama Three
Song explanation: Anybody who watched The Sopranos would instantly recognize this song as the title theme if they took the time to listen to it. I had a bit of a mental block this round, so I sprung for the easy gangster connection. Plus, the name of the group that did this song had a number in it.

During the night ATPG and Sasaki had their first ever clash. Before the game started, I sent khaan the following PM as part of a wrap-up of discussing Chicago Soirée:

Although I personally am greatly looking forward to the first ATPG/Sasaki showdown in my game. If that ever materializes... I could be looking at a 2,000-poster.

Ahh, vindication.

The conversation also came up about who people would pick if they were the Godfather. Nobody came close save Sigurd who named Tevash.

Much like the original winning strategy in Godfather 1, the mafia’s decision to move to one kill early on in the game was born of a mistake: someone not getting their kill in time. In this case, it was Tevash that sent in his kill PM a couple of hours late. If this was my Mafia series, I probably would have waited a couple of hours, contacted White_eyes about the possibility of getting a second one in, and let Tevash’s kill in late. However, this being the Godfather series, I went in on time with one kill. And thus, an entire body of detective work based off a false assumption was born.

A lot of general advice for the mafia/town has been given already in the thread, but I’d like to bring up my own tidbit that I don’t think has been mentioned yet. It was around this point in the game where the mafiosi were endlessly discussing how to do the write-ups and what kind of light people would see Beefy in depending upon what they did. I’ve noticed this phenomenon a lot over the years. Basically, because of their roles and victory conditions, the mafia is quite often overly paranoid when it comes to making decisions. Quite often, they can get caught in the trap of believing that the town is solely focusing on their actions and determining only their guilt or innocence. It’s easy to believe that, as the mafia, the town is unified against you, but you have to remember that the town doesn’t know who the other townies are. They have dozens of other people to analyze as well as you. I think a lot of times mafiosi get caught up in determining how people will take one minor decision when they should be looking at overall strategy. Our trio in this game was guilty of this to an extent, but luckily it didn’t harm them. For this time, White_eyes used “The Kill” against TinCow and thus his reaction fit right in.

Early voting put both Sigurd and YLC in danger. Sigurd for his inactivity (combined with paranoia over his lurker victory in Chicago Soirée), and YLC for his role in the Sasaki/Lord Winter debate. Naturally, YLC refused to cooperate with his accusers in typical YLC fashion, which probably made him appear more innocent overall. Tevash placed a vote on him afterwards and Sasaki, probably confused, went after him some more but I attribute these to Tevash’s being a mafioso and Sasaki’s unfamiliarity with YLC’s style.

During the lynch, I put the following in the writeup:

Nevertheless, the monolith-like presence of the hut did not distract them from voting, which made the guy with the boombox, observing it all, very glad.

…which was a clue that I was the boombox guy. After all, hosts are always happy when there’s activity.

Sigurd was lynched. 657 posts in, the game was about to take off.

Executed: Sigurd

Day 5

Tevash kills Jolt
White_eyes kills nobody
Song: “Escalator of Life” by Robert Hazard
Song explanation: This one said a few things. First of all, it was another indicator that I was the boombox guy. Robert Hazard, the artist, was a popular Philadelphia musician in the 1980s but wasn’t widely known outside of the area at all. I’ve mentioned several times on this forum that I grew up right outside of Philadelphia, so put two and two together and you have GH providing the songs. Secondly, I specifically directed you to the “climax” of the song, which is Hazard yelling “Nothing ever changes!” referring to the now thrice-used (out of three games in this series) mafia practice of dropping their kills down to one per night early on to hide their numbers. BTW, if you didn’t get any of these clues, don’t worry about it. I wasn’t expecting anyone to make anything out of the songs like I was with the word puzzle in Mafia VIII. It was more to add another dimension to the game.

Before we get to the insane events of the round, it’s worth noting that the mafia decided to stick with one kill, with Tevash going for Jolt while White_eyes stayed idle (the only round in which he didn’t kill, aside from the final one). A lot has been made about whether the decision to switch to one kill so early was the right one or not. Personally, I believe that it was. The town was operating under the assumption that Lord Winter was mafia for such a long time that I think it offset the extra firepower that the bad guys would’ve received. Plus, as mentioned before, so much of the detective work and posts in that thread were made off a false assumption that even people that went back and analyzed would be deterred (well, most people anyway). It was almost like another “Golden Rule”-type game.

Anyway, this round had so much packed into it that it all comes back to me in snapshots:

Snapshot: ATPG and Skynet going after Reenk and Tevash. Instantly the round becomes a debate between the ATPG supporters and detractors. It looks like the detractors have the early advantage due to the weight of TinCow’s, Reenk’s, Andres’s, and Sasaki’s opinions against it.

Snapshot: Tevash giving a long defense of himself. It got pressure off him temporarily, but, I think, the defense itself was Tevash’s scummiest characteristic as I don’t recall Tevash doing that sort of thing in previous games. I know if somebody had used that argument against me I would have howled in frustration, but it’s true.

Snapshot: khaan asking for permission to send Reenk and Seamus vague PMs in order to try to flush them out, and me agreeing because of him being off-target in the first place, and because of the sheer ambiguity of the PMs. khaan starting to provide vague hints as to his identity in the thread, getting everybody frustrated with his posting behavior.

Snapshot: TinCow beginning serious analysis of the songs, which made me jump for joy inside. Analysis devolving into Sasaki making a joke post: “ ‘Fruitless? Focus on the meat? Lynch Beefy!!!!’ ” Me laughing at the irony.

Snapshot: Beefy, in an effort to distance himself from his grunts, voting Tevash. As the votes on Tevash increase, White_eyes is ready to mutiny behind the scenes.

Snapshot: The game spiraling out of control as ATPG gets more desperate to get the town to follow him. Open hostility starting to make itself known.

Snapshot: Tevash, thinking (potentially incorrectly – I can’t confirm as I have no desire to read this round thoroughly) that he was the lynch, revealing as “Detective” without any PMs, real or not, to back up his claim.

Snapshot: Tevash’s fake reveal and ATPG’s suicidal vote change providing Tevash just enough cover to slip by for a round as ATPG goes down in flames.

Executed: Askthepizzaguy

Day 6

Tevash kills nobody
White_eyes kills Ignoramus
777Ares777 kills Sasaki Kojiro
Song: “One Love” by Bob Marley and the Wailers
Song explanation: Primarily a “whoa now, let’s all take a step back and cool down” after the events of the previous round. However, as usual, there were numbers present. There seemed to be two camps in the game regarding the meaning of the songs: those who thought it was just general commentary, and those who believed there were clues hidden throughout. You were both right.

Ares’s kill came at the right time, game-wise. I think the humor present in the writeup combined with the song served to douse everybody’s tensions at that point. Although I was a bit disappointed that Ares didn’t nail a mafioso and that he opted not to go for shlin, I must admit I relished writing Sasaki’s death. I also enjoyed watching everyone’s reaction in the thread immediately after it happened. Over in their Quicktopic, the mafia were panicking as well, which, combined with their suspicions of Reenk being a Mastermind (similar to the twist in Godfather 1), made for high entertainment. Maybe there is something to creating total chaos, after all.

Tevash went MIA at the night phase, and his absence definitely hurt the mafia. Having played a stellar game so far, he was not present to defend his Detective-ness, which probably would have set the town back a couple of rounds, even had they lynched him, in agonizing over whether they had made the right choice or not.

I think, during the night phase, the mafia committed their first serious error by misreading the town’s feelings. They were banking on the one kill per night implicating ATPG as a grunt, but at that point the town was pretty much used to it and associating it with the assumption that Lord Winter was a mafioso. Tevash’s absence made defending him impractical, but Beefy and White_eyes could possibly have steered the lynch somewhere else with a good alternate explanation.

With most people waiting for Tevash to get on before making a decision, votes for the early part of the round went a few separate ways. Chaotix27, doing what he had been doing all game, gunned for Reenk, while some people, like Andres, followed khaan’s suggestions and voted for Seamus. Curio continued voting for Quintus.JC for a reason that I’m still not sure of. taka, who hadn’t posted much at this point, cast his mind back to YLC’s earlier suspicious behavior and voted for pevergreen, who replaced YLC after he suicided.

White_eyes, in an effort to save his comrade, went after the most popular target (Seamus), but as the day dragged on and Tevash never showed up, it became clear that the mafia were going to be one member down. Eventually Beefy voted for his grunt, and that was the closest thing to pulling the plug as we’ll get in a mafia game.

Executed: TevashSzat

Day 7

White_eyes kills Psychonaut
Song: “Still Alive” by Jonathan Coulton
Song explanation: Better known as the credits music for Portal. I meant this one to be as ambiguous as possible to screw with your heads. However, the opening lyrics were pretty clear as to the town’s lynching of Tevash: “This was a triumph/I’m making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS.”

Reenk flexed his muscle here by getting Seamus under for no other reason than the fact that he wanted him lynched. He even said exactly why he wanted Seamus gone in the thread:

I have thought Seamus guilty ever since early in the game when he tried to pass off the write ups as my doing. I don't know what the seireikhaan clues or whatever were and haven't been paying attention.

[new post]

Yes, my suspicions of you are all based on intuition whereas I know many of you prefer an analytical approach, but as you know, Reenk Roink puts little value in rationality and analysis.

Afterwards, both publically and to me privately, Seamus talked in amazement about how Reenk was able to do what he does and get away with it.

Additionally under fire this round was Chief of Police shlin28, who came under suspicion primarily because… he wasn’t under suspicion. Such is the way of Mafia. I admit that my constant ambiguous references to him in the write-ups weren’t helping his cause (such as the infamous “only I’m allowed to [kill you]”) but I always made sure to carefully word it so that close examination would show that he was innocent. For example, the above sentence: “only he’s allowed” to kill people. Well, of course, the mafia aren’t allowed to kill people; that’s the reason why there’s a daily lynching. If mafia were allowed to kill people then it wouldn’t be much of a game. In addition, shlin was always doing something else at the time of the killings.

The efforts against the lurkers also heated up this round as glyphz and taka got in some trouble. In addition, Seamus pointed out (again) his suspicions of Beefy due to an unusually high post count. For all the hits that this kind of reasoning took over the course of the game (and all the points that Sasaki and especially Reenk scored with their playstyles), Seamus was dead on in this one. However, the two main targets were Seamus and shlin, who wasn’t helped by TinCow’s radar focused on him.

However, in the end, shlin held onto his position by the skin of his teeth and it was Seamus that ended up going down on his birthday. BTW, the Vincenzo reference that happened in the lynch was a result of a conversation between myself and shlin:

For the next simple lynch you shall need:

1. A Declaration of War against Sicily/wherever these mafia people come from.
2. A large canon.
3. A lynchee.

Step-by-step

1. Declare war on Sicily/wherever those mafia people come from.
2. Make a speech to the townspeople concerning how glorious the war will be, and mention that we must launch the first strike first.
3. Strap the suspect into the said canon.
4. Light the firing cord on the canon + aim it at whever we are firing at.
5. ???
6. PROFIT! (If the lynchee is mafia - we just insulted all mafia people, if the lynchee is not mafia - we scared the hell out of those mafioso in Sicily/wherever anyway)

Is this doable?

I could modify it to make the guy being launched straight into Vincenzo's (see the very first post) office, would that be acceptable?

I DEMAND A TOTAL WAR AGAINST MAFIA!!!

That will be fine actually

Executed: Seamus Fermanagh

Day 8

White_eyes kills LittleGrizzly
Song: “All My Life” by the Foo Fighters
Song explanation: Dual purpose. First, plenty of number references, even in the “repeat 3x” notations in the lyrics. Secondly, I was attempting to inform the town that they seemed to be adhering to a “let’s lynch the next one in line!” philosophy, which I have spoke out against plenty of times in the past.

For all the talk about the WIFOM present in the kill write-ups, especially WE’s Youtube videos, there was a major clue in them that nobody noticed: the videos themselves. Reading over his out-of-thread posts, I noticed that White_eyes quite often linked to Youtube videos when making a point. If people had made that connection, WE would have been toast and Beefy would have had to survive for four rounds on his own. People studying the trees and missing the forest again.

It was around here where things started to slow down a bit. The tumult of Day 5 had long passed and the town was pretty much just swinging blindly at this point, continuing to collect data and whittle down their targets for when the endgame came around. Because of town exhaustion, shlin was in trouble for the entire day, and ATPG’s building a case against him during the night didn’t help him any.

However, it wasn’t a sure thing. Reenk, continuing his vendetta against those who disagreed with him, disregarded his longtime target Chaotix for a new threat, Andres, in a move that would have endgame implications. In addition, Curio also probably clinched himself being a lynch target by remaining neutral in spite of a very factional round (for or against shlin?).

shlin went down in an execution sequence that was a combination of all of his others that he used, minus ATPG’s requested one. Overall, shlin did a very good job in his duties as Chief of Police, maintaining a presence throughout and giving me very good material to work with in the parts of the write-ups that I controlled. I personally thought that it was a very cool one and that shlin’s creativity wouldn’t be topped… until random.org gave me his replacement.

Executed: shlin28
New Chief of Police: Reenk Roink

Day 9

White_eyes kills Chaotix27
Song: “Atom Heart Mother (suite)” by Pink Floyd
Song explanation: If properly analyzed, this one would have given the town the game. The song had no lyrics, which was supposed to confuse you and get you looking in other areas. One of these places would eventually be the cover of the album “Atom Heart Mother”, which upon inspection was a clear reference to Beefy. This was the closest clue I dared give. I think, if TinCow had not mistakenly provided the lyrics for “Astronomy Domine”, discussion might have eventually turned that way and Beefy would have been in trouble.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The Atom Heart Mother album cover. Got lead?

Continuing with the pre-endgame lull that a lot of my games seem to experience, the activity was a bit down this round. Once again, the town, lacking anything better to do, went with the “next in line” strategy which I’ve been pushing against for a while now. The abstain count was also starting to creep up again.

Beefy and White_eyes, despite a couple of hiccups, were playing an amazing game, and I was fairly confident that they’d be able to pull a victory off despite the odds. If anything, I was sure that White_eyes was going to survive, and if the mafia did manage to lose Beefy would go down before WE. Despite a healthy post count, White_eyes was so much his normal self that nobody really paid much attention to him.

With the pressure on the lurkers, glyphz and Curio, and to a lesser extent taka, tried to contribute in order to save themselves. taka was slowly getting more comfortable as the number of players dwindled to small game-level, the type of game that he prefers the most. ATPG chipped in with Ares, the now-powerless nude unicyclist, as his newest suspect but by that point he had exhausted his favor with the town and was pretty much ignored.

In the end, glyphz’s head popped out of the Whack-a-Lurker machine that the town was in this round and was summarily executed, by Reenk Roink, in true Wanax fashion.

Executed: glyphz

Day 10

White_eyes kills pevergreen
Song: “We Have All the Time in the World” by Louis Armstrong
Song explanation: I chose this one for irony value. Despite the title and lyrics, this song is actually closely associated with fast-approaching death. First of all, it was the last song Satchmo recorded before passing away. Secondly, as 007 fans are aware, this was the theme for Bond and his eventual wife, Tracy. Immediately after their wedding, Tracy is shot and killed. This was a warning for the town to get into gear before the mafia overwhelmed them.

The endgame officially began this round as the number alive dropped into the single digits. The sadist in me quite enjoyed writing the part about Reenk being able to vote after so many people expressed relief in the fact that he was previously not allowed to.

The pressure on Ares continued, although with the start of the endgame it finally – finally! – branched off into a few directions. In addition, activity on the song analysis front started up again. ATPG in this post made a very legitimate attempt at guessing who the Godfather was based on the clues in the songs, particularly the number references that were present in the earlier ones. However, he came to the conclusion that they pointed to Ares… so close, yet so far. That post almost made me cringe.

Also around this time, to add to the strange coincidences, Beefy unveiled his new sig, the one with the evil-looking cow and the description: “Mafia – it’s who you least expect to be guilty.” I found this doubly ironic for both the caption but also the cow, especially considering the clue I had just inserted in the round before.

With so few people left, pretty much everyone fell under suspicion, including those who had previously gotten a free ride such as Andres and Curio. As a matter of fact, the only people that really skated by were Beefy and White_eyes. Beefy because by that point people seemed ready to let him have the victory if he was Godfather, but White_eyes because he was just doing that good of a job. It was at this point where the game seemed to turn into the playstyle battle royale that I mentioned in my essay, especially with Reenk’s defense of his intuition style against Andres’s assault.

After the dust cleared, there was a three-way tie between Andres, Curio, and the mafia’s preferred target: taka. Andres, in a move that would probably secure the town’s belief of his innocence, was online at the time I initiated the sudden death but did nothing, instead leaving it up to his fellow townies to work things out. White_eyes, in a good position no matter who was lynched, switched his vote from taka to Curio to end things. Had he been a little forward-thinking, he might have seen Andres’s refusal to move as a long-term threat and worked to remove it, but that of course is unfair on him as I am most definitely using hindsight. Besides, if he did so more suspicion might have come upon him, so it might not have made a difference. But in the endgame, every move has implications. That’s what makes it so hard for the mafia.

Anyway, the point is that Curio got lynched and the mafia were one round away from victory. It would be now or never for the so-called “curse of GH”.

Executed: Gaius Scribonius Curio

Day 11

White_eyes kills 777Ares777
Song: “Tonight, Tonight” by the Smashing Pumpkins
Song explanation: Properly conveyed the sense of desperation I was looking for. “Believe in the resolute urgency of now” and all that. I didn’t even realize that there was an implication of the game being over “tonight” if the town got the lynch wrong until it was brought up in the thread.

First of all, just to confirm, the juggle ball reference in the kill writeup was placed in there by me, indicating that Ares was the dearly departed nude unicyclist.

The desperation began early on as Seamus posted the percentages that were clearly in the mafia’s favor. However, so did the work that would turn the tide in the town’s favor. Following Beefy’s signature’s advice, Quintus.JC in a very intelligent move decided that he’d be going for Beefy or White_eyes because everyone else looked like lynchbait. Reenk too called White_eyes out for not killing Andres or his allies, although it would be a while before he actually voted WE. I don’t know. (Note to self: keep repeating “Reenk is Reenk” when trying to make sense of the previous bit.) Andres too joined in by moving away from his longtime nemesis Reenk by prodding White_eyes to talk a bit more.

White_eyes, faced with a sudden burst of pressure after pretty much cruising for ten rounds, stuck to his guns and continued to vote for taka, playing the paranoia card.

However, it was Sasaki’s long post, examining the connections between Beefy, White_eyes, and Tevash that ultimately ruined the round for the mafia. His post #1635 in the thread has already been discussed at length and I don’t need to rehash it here as this commentary is already way too long. In short, we’ll say it was the stuff of greatness and leave it at that.

It was around this round that it came to light that Beefy had been contacting people in private over the course of the game hoping to work with them, most notably taka. This was an excellent move that had been used by people in the past to great effect, and probably was what saved Beefy from The Wanax this round because enough people refused to vote for him out of principle.

Instead, the victim was White_eyes, lynched largely because of Sasaki’s case and Reenk’s frenetic vote changes, eventually landing on the remaining grunt because of – what else? – intuition.

Executed: White_eyes:D

Day 12

Beefy kills Quintus.JC
Song: “The Final Countdown” by Europe (London Symphony Orchestra rendition)
Song explanation: Duh.

Beefy already posted his original kill in the thread, which was quite accurate. It was so bare that I had to break my own rule and do work on it to make it presentable in the thread. This isn’t a knock against Beefy, of course, as he was expecting an absent White_eyes to write it for him.

Considering the kill choice, Beefy went the direct route and removed his opposition outright, hoping that his bonds with taka and Reenk would hold for 48 more hours. I can’t really fault him for this as this was pretty much his only choice. Andres had consistently been facing suspicion for the past several days, and the main endgame lesson learned from Mafia VIII, as I’m sure Curio can attest to, is to surround yourself with suspects and not semi-lurkers and one major alternative suspect (in this case, Reenk).

This was the strangest endgame I ever witnessed. The usual last-minute detective work was done in the previous do-or-die round. In its placed was a higher discussion of playstyle and personal priorities. Everybody but taka knew Beefy’s identity at this point, but the question was whether they would all decide to play by the rules and lynch the Godfather, or complete their own objectives and either stay true to their philosophies or give the game to Beefy as a gesture of congratulations.

A dead vote was looming in the case of the tie, something which I believe had been done only twice before: Mafia I and Godfather 2. In this case, the sentiment among the dead was definitely that Beefy was the Godfather, which meant that the 24-hour extension was only a formality and that a tie vote meant a loss for the mafia.

Beefy, naturally, acted in self-preservation, trying to secure a win after an outstanding effort. Since Andres, his preferred lynch target at the start of the round, looked like he was going to make it through, he voted for the next likeliest person: Reenk.

taka, who seemed to be the odd man out of the equation, ignored peer pressure and stuck to his guns. Considering Reenk’s behavior to be scummy and unacceptable, he placed his vote on Reenk early and refused to budge.

Andres, the one remaining logistician, believed in the Beefy/White_eyes team for a while now and voted accordingly. After some deliberation, he switched his vote to no lynch, ready to give Beefy the game. However, he changed his mind and eventually ended up voting Beefy.

Reenk had determined that Beefy was the Godfather only recently, but upheld his principles and voted for taka out of retaliation. He changed his mind several times, debating on whether to give Beefy the game or not. Eventually, though, he ruled in favor of the rest of the town, deciding not to be a spoiler and voted Beefy.

24 hours later, the dead had decided, and despite a final effort by White_eyes, Beefy was the lynch for Day 12.

Executed: Beefy187

Game end

Wow. That’s all I have to say. At the start of this, I didn’t think Godfather 2 could be topped, as that game is first and foremost in my mind among the great ones. I think we managed to pull off the impossible, though.

Praise goes all around on this one. First, naturally, to the mafiosi: TevashSzat, White_eyes, and Beefy187 for an incredible effort. Twelve rounds of pure art, gentlemen. To realize the scope of what they had to do to win this one, Capo II had 15 rounds, but with nearly three times the players. The fact that you weren’t able to take it at the end in no way diminishes the amazing performance that we witnessed here.

Second, to the power roles: seireikhaan for maintaining a presence after death, 777Ares777 for staying alive long enough to give the game another turn, and our two Chiefs of Police shlin28 and Reenk Roink for their wonderful lynch methods.

Third, to the moderators, Andres and Sigurd, for having to deal with all the extra workload that my game created. As this was the first time I hosted after receiving my promotion as AM, I have a new respect for what you do.

Fourth, to the townies for their tireless effort and dedication to the game, making it the great experience that it was. Any game in which the town’s efforts were so notable that they prompt the host to write a 3,000 word essay on town styles is definitely a successful one. Hopefully this is the start of a greater trend.

Fifth, just one more time to all of the players and those who expressed interest in doing so. You guys have no idea how much making this a successful game meant to me, and at the risk of sounding sentimental, you succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. This is just a personal thank you to all of you for doing so.

And that officially wraps up The Godfather, Part 3, folks. I’m not sure if I’m going to continue it or not, because, frankly, I don’t know how this one can be topped. If I do, it will be very far down the road. But for now, I will always look at this game with fond memories. I look forward to sharing similar experiences with you well into the future.

~ General Hankerchief

BTW, can I get the summary thread temporarily unlocked? I'd like to put the commentary and essay in there for ease of reference. Thanks in advance.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

I noticed the album art for the floyd song and beefy's new avatar but never put them together. I thought the songs were just general clues. Reading over it it looks like we figured out most of them, although putting in "perry mason" after the detective died and then the theme from the sopranos after LW was lynched threw us for a loop, lol. But then how could you know LW would be assumed to be mafia?

I agree that the town fell into a "lynch the next on the list" mentality which was probably harmful, I didn't even find anything useful from that period in my reread. The lynches of shlin and seamus were not good choices. We needed glyphz and curio eliminated before endgame though so it wasn't a complete wash.

[Beefy187]

Hmm. Perhaps I should change my name to something more human

I didn't get any of the song clues but that album with the cow could've killed me straight off

Again, thank you for the amazing game GH

[White_eyes:D]

For all the talk about the WIFOM present in the kill write-ups, especially WE’s Youtube videos, there was a major clue in them that nobody noticed: the videos themselves. Reading over his out-of-thread posts, I noticed that White_eyes quite often linked to Youtube videos when making a point. If people had made that connection, WE would have been toast and Beefy would have had to survive for four rounds on his own. People studying the trees and missing the forest again.

This was the only point many of the veteran Mafia players missed "studying the trees and missing the forest".....Sasaki did his homework and caught me and Beefy, by linking us with Tevash....but ATPG, TinCow and many others could have easily put two and two together, with the videos and write-up style. Of course it was "Too much WIFOM to even think there were clues" but I was counting on that....if town followed that WIFOM, I would have been(or beefy) lynched long ago......shlin made a good analysis of my videos I posted "something about the players, who are killed" good job there.....if you had looked a little more you would have noticed a pattern......