The Way of the Samurai [Concluded]

[Beefy187]

Sasaki, Slashandburn, Yaropolk was our three ronins. They were neutral with defensive abilities, they could choose alignment if they wanted to. They started with 3 strength points. Sasaki and Yaropolk getting that role was pure luck. It would've been awesome if they did the duel too.

Chimpyang I believe also started with 3, Kitou with 4 and autolycus with 5.
Lord of Lent had 2 to start with. He had the ability to post anonymous messages, check out faction strength balance each night, investigate players alignment etc.

I was hoping for a fairly balanced game, but it ended in a confident victory for townies so I should've made the mafia a bit stronger. Lord of Lent lynch early on was a bit unfortunate.. He could've spreaded paranoia everywhere.

It didn't work out as well as I wanted to, but I hope you enjoyed the game. If not... Ostracism is starting any minute now and that is going to be my revenge game :D

[Csargo]

:laugh4:

You realise you're dead, right?


Worth it.


Even though he was meant to be my right hand man in organising the town, we never spoke. No contact whatsoever.

Did anyone think that I was confined to posting smilies? :beam:

I didn't realise my role until RR PMed me the last day phase. I looked back at my role PM and figured out my mistake. After that it was pointless since you already had your plan in motion. Forgive me :bow:

[Askthepizzaguy]

I didn't realise my role until RR PMed me the last day phase.

Classic Csargo.

[Secura]

Good call on that Lord of Lent lead, Sasaki. It was my pleasure to put him to the sword.

Well done, team. :bow:

I love how the vigilante attacks actually turned up a mafioso. :P


My gut reaction when I'd seen that Kagemusha had died was that it was specifically a mafia attack to keep Pizza out of the game; if my source regarding the killer is correct, then it was definitely autolycus. Bit of a low move no matter who it is, though.

Someone was really scared of Pizza, huh? :laugh4:

My hat goes off to Chimpyang for confirming my suspicions about autolycus and stating he'd be keeping a close eye on him (though I still haven't solved your second cryptic message!) and to Beskar for bringing forward the information about auto's attack against Kage, which at least gave us some suspicions to work on; had pever allowed to attacks to continue, he would most certainly have been a target... so, good call on both counts, gents! :3

And of course, because failing to mention Naritsugu would mean execution... a good job by pevergreen! :P

I suppose that now the game's over, I can reveal some things that went on behind the scenes?

[autolycus]

Mechanics question/ small complaint.

"Night action: All players are given the option to protect or to kill. They don't have to coordinate the attacks or protection. It will be automatically calculated. If town member does not send in their order, they will automatically protect Matsudaira Naritsugu.

If the strength of attack is below the victim and its protectors attackers will die and vice versa. If the strength of both faction is equal, no one dies. "
So the three attack sets are me and Glenn vs. Csargo, Skooma and YLC vs. Glen, and Sasaki vs. me.
Those rules say to me that Csargo and Glenn should each fall to their attackers, and I should stave off Sasaki.
If what you meant was that that all orders involving a person would stack, rather than "all attacks on a person stack" and "all defenses on a person stack", you should have said so, because that changes strategy. :(

With LoL's early death, though, my team was in big trouble. LoL got strength tallies of our team, so through duels, we could confirm if someone had converted. Without that, we had no way of identifying converts. Just out of curiosity, how many of you would have flipped and charged with me if I'd just claimed and declared a charge last night, and how many would have protected pever.


Here's the QT: http://www.quicktopic.com/45/H/WrfTypWPmYJ

[pevergreen]

I dont know if YLC sent in orders. I think since you were attacking Csargo, maybe his strength was added.

Or maybe beefy realised that it would have taken at most I could have ID'd you in another 2 nights.

Beefy: The game was good, but my tactic combined with my role made the town unbeatable.

[Yaropolk]

Sasaki, Slashandburn, Yaropolk was our three ronins. They were neutral with defensive abilities, they could choose alignment if they wanted to. They started with 3 strength points. Sasaki and Yaropolk getting that role was pure luck. It would've been awesome if they did the duel too.

Chimpyang I believe also started with 3, Kitou with 4 and autolycus with 5.
Lord of Lent had 2 to start with. He had the ability to post anonymous messages, check out faction strength balance each night, investigate players alignment etc.

I was hoping for a fairly balanced game, but it ended in a confident victory for townies so I should've made the mafia a bit stronger. Lord of Lent lynch early on was a bit unfortunate.. He could've spreaded paranoia everywhere.

It didn't work out as well as I wanted to, but I hope you enjoyed the game. If not... Ostracism is starting any minute now and that is going to be my revenge game :D

Beefster - I already deleted my role PM, but I don't recall having any defensive abilities in there.

[autolycus]

I dont know if YLC sent in orders. I think since you were attacking Csargo, maybe his strength was added.

Or maybe beefy realised that it would have taken at most I could have ID'd you in another 2 nights.

Beefy: The game was good, but my tactic combined with my role made the town unbeatable.

Only if I kept ignoring your orders, which I wouldn't have. Csargo had to die, because it was obvious he was permanent innocent. I was planning on waiting one or two more days, then claiming in thread at night and hoping other people had flipped during that time. What was your strength, and how would you have id'd me if after csargo's death I followed your orders to the letter until the night I struck?

[Sasaki Kojiro]

hah, LoL was mafia and there was mafia in that vig group night 1! Of course I had privileged information on that since I'd killed robbiecon that night.

I was a pure survivor which is pretty neutral, I figured I would kill people off for no reason because it made it more likely for me to survive.

I had a 1-shot lynch immunity, would have killed one person on the wagon too.

I missed sending in a kill the night classical died, but I would have killed classical sooo...


Just out of curiosity, how many of you would have flipped and charged with me if I'd just claimed and declared a charge last night, and how many would have protected pever.


I would have, had plans about it since I dislike these breaking strategy things. I'd hoped diamondeye would get some people together to kill reenk and that there would be enough vig groups out to weaken pever's protection.

But it sounds like pever was almost unguarded last night? Hmm?

Actually, I was about to send in orders to protect yaropolk last night figuring that would screw up the pever plan. But then I saw that auto was calling for role claims from everyone in council, and had refused here, so I figured I get a chance to fight a mafioso one on one.

[Askthepizzaguy]

I'd like to offer some post-game thoughts on vigilantism and its value to the town.

During the game, a number of people were not enthusiastic about the vig killings, even members of the vig squad itself. The thought I kept bumping into was that town really shouldn't be assisting the mafia in destroying townies, or townies felt uncomfortable about taking matters into their own hands.

The sentiment is nice, but lynches are basically the same thing, except more democratic. Meaning more susceptible to mafia changing the votes to make it a bad lynch, or people giving bad arguments to switch the lynch to someone innocent. Because of town's divided nature, it's easy for lynches to go wrong. Still, it is usually the town's best weapon.

If a town neither lynched nor performed any vig kills, every death would likely be a mafia killing a townie. A 100% chance of innocents dying. If a town lynches, as they should, not every death is guaranteed to be an innocent, and that is usually how you must win. Still, the mafia ALWAYS have a say in who gets lynched, so it is more inaccurate.

Vigilante killings, when directed by mafia, will be highly likely to hit townies. However, a townie knows he is innocent, and a basic townie is willing to die for the good of the team. If even a basic townie takes the initiative and decides on vigilante deaths, that means there is in fact a chance of mafia dying, and there is less chance of the mafia overturning such an action. They either have to direct the vig killings themselves (high risk), convince the director to attack someone (still risky) or directly sabotage the group attack itself (very risky and could involve too much mafia manpower). I would argue that vigilante killings, when used properly, are town's most effective weapon besides investigations and roleblocks. In some cases, more effective, since investigations can be false, and roleblocks might hit an inactive mafioso, and in such a case, they don't prove anything.

Death is of course the best proof of innocence, and if not innocence, at least not being a threat anymore. Life is quite absurd, and death's the final word, you know.

In this game I admit there was room for other options; the defensive strategy pever and I believe Reenk advocated was actually quite impressive and a good refutation of the idea that vigilantism was the way to go. It could be done without it, in this game. I don't believe that will usually be the case, but it works here, very well it seems.

This goes right along with my recent attitude change towards serial killers; if discovered early, they can be forced vigilantes, acting under town's will, and they can be destroyed at any point in the middle to late middlegame. If they follow orders, they become a huge threat to the mafia, and might take some of them down, or get killed by the mafia. It really does kill two birds with one stone, or in some cases, three... But they are still an endgame threat and have to die before then.

If there is a game with a serial killer and a vigilante, coordinating their attacks and having known townies direct those attacks is almost game-breaking. Here, multiple vig kills were not only possible, they happened regularly. It obliterates mafia very quickly, with good odds of success. In the CoV game, there were many moments in the game where there was a known serial killer and a known vigilante running around somewhere, and the effect of using both under town direction would have been absolutely devastating, and it was in several cases.

Town ends up having more voting members, more bodies, and more kills than the mafia itself, and the mafia ends up being forced to whack the serial killer, the vigilantes, the doctors protecting them perhaps, and they only have so many rounds to do it before they get killed themselves. Vigilantism is not something a serious town should shy away from.

In case it interests anyone:


Okay, I predict that Subotan will die for the lynch.

You're stuck on Lord of Lent, and although I usually detest focusing on newer players so early, because I find it advantageous to get a baseline reading of their mafia or townie play, in this circumstance 2 rounds will have passed so he had a chance to play.

Additionally I know nothing about Lord of Lent, strength or whatever. I could vig him and no one would know other than the vigs, yourself, and pevergreen.

Seeing as there seem to be no objections, and there are a lot of people involved, I'll count that as having some sort of democratic/town consensus. If it's a bad move, at least it was as a result of town attempting to win. I prefer to lose through trying to win, rather than from apathy.

This way you'll have someone to vote for besides LoL tomorrow.


him dying by lynch and us vigging LoL is just as cool with me.

I'm far from sold on LoL but it's like having 8910J in poker, you just go for the straight no questions asked.


Since subo was scum, I don't want to kill LoL. I doubt scum so much as fos'd each other with only two of them. We can provisionally put all of subotan's vote choices and everyone who voted him on a no-vig list.

Haven't looked through it yet to see who I'd like to go after, maybe there isn't any strong candidate.


Wait, Subotan was scum? In what way was he scum?

Please direct me to the post which says so. I read his death, I didn't see any outward indication...


Ehhh, I remember him saying a few things that sound like a confession.

And that bit where he was tied for the lead and said "diamondeye, you'll die unless you vote for slash".

And complaining about there "wasn't really any evidence".


All could be townie things to say.

I've already sent the orders to everyone regarding Lord of lent. Unfortunately such a massive coordination effort does not allow for nimble changes on the fly based on snap decisions.

This stuff has to be decided during the day phases. This is basically like Capo, where everything had to be decided before the lynch was even happening, or else, guaranteed, I'd be missing at least 3-4 people.

There is no reason currently not to suspect Lord of Lent, correct? As such he's as viable a vig as any.


Ah, killing lord of lent is fine, sure. That can't be called back what with attackers ending up dead.



Anyway. When used properly, vigilantes, serial killers, and the lynch can allow up to 3 deaths per day to be directed by known townies. If more deaths are caused by townies, the odds of successfully destroying mafia increases by quite a bit. If more deaths are caused by mafia kills, every one of those deaths will be wrong. Although there will be fluke circumstances where the town will miss them all completely, the odds are just stacked against that happening, especially if a little thought is put into who dies and why.

That kind of pressure also causes the mafia to focus on whacking the vig and the SK, possibly leaving investigators and doctors alive, especially if the vig and/or the SK have claimed. It just adds up to a nightmare for the mafia. With detectives, you can use the pre-emptive counter claim, the post-claim counter claim, or just bluff and suggest they're an insane or naive detective, to some effect sometimes. Roleblockers, the solution is simple, you randomly decide not to kill on certain nights, and that causes the blocker to think he's blocked a mafia when he likely has not. There are possibilities of enduring such roles, but vigilantism is something that you can't really argue against, can't really bluff away, and being inactive doesn't solve. It is the best weapon townies have, double edged sword though it might be.

There are some instances where it shouldn't be used. In the Star Wars game I hosted, for example, the longer everyone lived, the more powerful the town became in comparison to the mafia. Letting people live, or even attacking defended people on purpose, to prolong the game, were better options. But in general, vigilantism truly is the way to go.

/end rant.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

God subo, your post death psuedo-confessions confused me.

[Chimpyang]

Secura : Check the quote out, if you get stuck the answer is in the spoiler:

The quote is by Antonin Dvorak, although not copied word for word, the message is sent as though it had been typed as a QWERTY layout but with a DVORAK keyboard input, not so much historical Japanese, but something I thought was cool when looking for other Japanese ciphers to use! Obviously, I used a webpage to do the converting for me. The second message is really just a confirmation that I considered Autolycus to be a major suspect.

Regarding the game: I knew it was messy, but I sent 2 sets of information around. To the Vig (turned out Mafia) group I was in, I sent misinformation about my strength, the only verifiable aspect of my character, claiming 2 to everyone else, and the replied I got I also presumed to most likely be misinformation too, Autolycus claimed a 3, CH a 2 and Beskar never sent his around. I didn't really trust Autolycus at any point, since anyone starting a vig group is instantly suspicious, but decided to play along to see what targets were up for discussion and that I might be able to collate information, especially when any targets had dubious reasoning for targetting.

Since there was a character all of the town knew that we could trust, I sent my real strength rating to Pevergreen, Secura claimed to have received information from ATPG and apparently indirectly from Pevergreen with the wrong information about my strength, so I knew someone else was also disclosing information about this highly suspicious group. Since it was looking like that I had somehow promoted myself to be #1 lynch target, I had to get all of the info I had gathered out there, so I gambled and passed it all to Secura - but left it in a cipher (gotta make them work for the info somehow! :laugh4:).

[Diamondeye]

Good job, team. Except my lynch :tongue:

[Reenk Roink]

Thank you for hosting Beefy :bow: :balloon: I like the completely useless nature of voting/dueling due to pever mechanic.


Beefy: The game was good, but my tactic combined with my role made the town unbeatable.

Yeah, but this experiment will make the sequel the best ever! :2thumbsup: Technically you didn't have to make full use of your power to win this like this. But thanks for letting us run around for a couple of rounds before bringing it in. :bow:


Csargo was my right hand man, I knew him to be innocent from the start. I was meant to be able to choose, but Beefy forgot, so Reenk wasn't Kitou.

:sad: Biggest regret of the game. :cry: Csar was probably #2 on the list anyway, so that helps.


Good job, team. Except my lynch :tongue:

Well, you verbally threatened me in the thread. Retaliation (too bad about Yaro, pever you could have had him killed at the end while accomplishing what you wanted also you know... :whip:). By the way, I wish you guys had attacked, I had Csar's and s&b's protection that night. :beam:

By the way, despite all the whining about pever and I, I basically had two PMs exchanged with pever until after Secura exploded, and they were along the lines of "You have some use for Sasaki at the moment?" for the first and "sucks that I'm not your right hand man, btw I killed Atpg" for the second.

[Beskar]

Wait... who won?

[autolycus]

All living innocents. Glenn and I attacked csargo, a bunch of folks attacked glenn, and sasaki attacked me. These got amalgamated for reasons I don't understand, and glenn and I died. Since I was the only remaining original scum, this ended the game.

[autolycus]

wait, Beefy, how much strength actually was protecting you that last night?

[Yaropolk]

too bad about Yaro, pever you could have had him killed at the end while accomplishing what you wanted also you know... :whip:).

I had a defense group set up last night but pever promised to murderize you if you killed me, so I played nice instead.

To diamondeye - sorry I had to set you up but better to be a live fox than a dead rat!

[Secura]

until after Secura exploded

It was glorious. :>

[Skooma Addict]

Good job, team. Except my lynch :tongue:
It was unfortunately a necessary evil. You should have just walked away my friend. Walked away and forgotten what you had heard. But no, you preferred to be a dead hero then a living legend...

Sake Addict is just happy he survived this whole ordeal.

[Reenk Roink]

It was glorious. :>

Definitely :bow:, the gameplay of the players was pretty boring until that moment. I wish pever had allowed the entire situation to wrap up before stepping in and closing the door on the game.

[Romanic]

I don't have much to say about the game, considering I was the day 1 lynch, and missed a lot of what happened behind the scenes.

I can't believe that I protected Lord of Lent on day 1, was lynched instead, and he was mafia :bigcry:

I was such a failure, bury me with the common folk, or better, let me rot in the sun.

Thanks for the game Beefy! It was fun to... read. :laugh4:

[Beefy187]

wait, Beefy, how much strength actually was protecting you that last night?

Hmm? What do you mean?
autolycus (5), Glenn (1) vs Csargo (5), Sasaki (5), Skooma (1)

Sorry the game confused everyone. Assuming the battles takes places simulatenously, the town side clearly won the battle.Also pever was on to you anyway, with his lynching ability he would've nailed you.

@Yaro. I was planning to give you one. Thats another thing I stuffed up :wall:

[autolycus]

Why do battles take place simultaneously and merged? The opening post said all attacks on one person go up against all defenses on that person. Loser dies. This is the way I interpreted it:
So I read that as 3 battles. The battle for csargo's live, the battle for Glenn's life, and the battle for my life.
Attackers of csargo: me (5) + Glenn (1)= 6
Defenders of csargo: csargo (5)
We win, csargo dies

Attackers of Glenn: Skooma(3)
Defenders of Glenn: Glenn (1)
Skooma wins, Glenn dies.

Attackers of me: Sasaki (5)
Defenders of me: Me (5)
Tie, no one dies.

What would have happened if Glenn had defended me, rather than attacking with me, for example?
In my interpretation, that would become:
Attackers of csargo: me (5)
Defenders of csargo: csargo (5)
We tie, no one dies

Attackers of Glenn: Skooma(3)
Defenders of Glenn: Glenn (1)
Skooma wins, Glenn dies.

Attackers of me: Sasaki (5)
Defenders of me: Me (5) + csargo (1)
We win, Sasaki dies.

If I attack someone, and someone else attacks me, are you saying that the effect is the same if a third party defends me or attacks the same target as me?


You're right that it doesn't matter much, there's no way I won this.

[Beefy187]

Why do battles take place simultaneously and merged? The opening post said all attacks on one person go up against all defenses on that person. Loser dies. This is the way I interpreted it:
So I read that as 3 battles. The battle for csargo's live, the battle for Glenn's life, and the battle for my life.
Attackers of csargo: me (5) + Glenn (1)= 6
Defenders of csargo: csargo (5)
We win, csargo dies

Attackers of Glenn: Skooma(3)
Defenders of Glenn: Glenn (1)
Skooma wins, Glenn dies.

Attackers of me: Sasaki (5)
Defenders of me: Me (5)
Tie, no one dies.

What would have happened if Glenn had defended me, rather than attacking with me, for example?
In my interpretation, that would become:
Attackers of csargo: me (5)
Defenders of csargo: csargo (5)
We tie, no one dies

Attackers of Glenn: Skooma(3)
Defenders of Glenn: Glenn (1)
Skooma wins, Glenn dies.

Attackers of me: Sasaki (5)
Defenders of me: Me (5) + csargo (1)
We win, Sasaki dies.

If I attack someone, and someone else attacks me, are you saying that the effect is the same if a third party defends me or attacks the same target as me?


You're right that it doesn't matter much, there's no way I won this.

True I did say that didn't I... My apologies.

[Romanic]

I'm lost. Do I have this right?

Mafia (3) : autolycus, Lord of Lent and Glenn (recruited).
Neutrals (3) : Sasaki, slashandburn, Yaropolk.
Town (22): everyone else.

Still alive (12) : Beskar, Csargo, Nightbringer, pevergreen, Reenk Roink, Sasaki, Secura, Seon, Skooma, slashandburn, Yaropolk, YLC.

? - I read that Csargo died, but he seems alive in the last writeup.

Winners - 9 or 12 ?
Living Town (9) : Beskar, Csargo, Nightbringer, pever, Reenk, Secura, Seon, Skooma, YLC.
Living Neutral (3) : Sasaki, slashandburn, YLC.

Losers - 16 or 19?
Dead players (16) : ATPG, auto, Blackadder, Cecil, Chaotix, Chimpyang, classical, DE, Glenn, GE, Kage, Lord of Lent, Renata, robbie, Romanic, Subotan.
Living Neutral (3) : Sasaki, slashandburn, YLC.

? - Did the neutral win with the Town?

Please validate Beefy, or anyone. :bow:

[autolycus]

I can validate that list of affiliations. As to whether csargo died, I think the answer should be yes, but in the end it's up to Beefy.

[slashandburn]

I switched to town affiliation so i won with town. Neutrals got a offer to join mafia, town, or remain neutral.

[Askthepizzaguy]

I switched to town affiliation so i won with town. Neutrals got a offer to join mafia, town, or remain neutral.

You made a serial killing pizzaguy proud.

[Beefy187]

I'm lost. Do I have this right?

Mafia (3) : autolycus, Lord of Lent and Glenn (recruited).
Neutrals (3) : Sasaki, slashandburn, Yaropolk.
Town (22): everyone else.

Still alive (12) : Beskar, Csargo, Nightbringer, pevergreen, Reenk Roink, Sasaki, Secura, Seon, Skooma, slashandburn, Yaropolk, YLC.

? - I read that Csargo died, but he seems alive in the last writeup.

Winners - 9 or 12 ?
Living Town (9) : Beskar, Csargo, Nightbringer, pever, Reenk, Secura, Seon, Skooma, YLC.
Living Neutral (3) : Sasaki, slashandburn, YLC.

Losers - 16 or 19?
Dead players (16) : ATPG, auto, Blackadder, Cecil, Chaotix, Chimpyang, classical, DE, Glenn, GE, Kage, Lord of Lent, Renata, robbie, Romanic, Subotan.
Living Neutral (3) : Sasaki, slashandburn, YLC.

? - Did the neutral win with the Town?

Please validate Beefy, or anyone. :bow:

Neutrals won with the town :bow:
Reason why I had the dead lose the game is so that they had more motivation to join the mafia. Especially if Naritsugu was swinging around lynches.

IIRC the mafia and Glenn came the last place, dead town second last, and everyone else is tied on first.

[classical_hero]

When I saw that Chimpyang and then myself get killed in two night in a row I knew it either had to be auto or Beskar that was scum due to the fact that people in the first vigilante group were starting to get knocked off. I just wasn't sure which one, though.

[Romanic]

Beefy, is Csargo still alive?

[Beefy187]

Csargo is still alive.