The Inquisition [Concluded]

[Montmorency]

That would be, uh, the whole point of contention.

If you heroically assume that the Mafia have no special abilities in particular when killing, then you must admit that there could easily be 3 Mafia alive, and they would have to be among myself, Zack, Barto, and Nightbringer.

Come up with an actual narrative.

[Ituralde]

I didn't think that ATPG had claimed a role? Where did that come from?

Your option 3 is wide of the mark. Monty has been claiming scanner right from the start.

Reading between the lines I picked up a role vibe from atpg and it make sense that he was attacked then. Rereading the thread a second time, I can't point my finger to any precise quote, so I might have been off there.

Montmorency only revealed in thread last round, but it's good to know that he revealed to others beforehand. You said that you , GH and ATPG knew about him?



Off-Topic: You can disable the tapatalk signature under the settings Tab. There's a signature option and you can choose 'no signature' there.

[Sooh]

How do you mean? You're not vanilla?

No, I'm exactly vanilla. That's why it's odd that I should be seen as guilty, but as mentioned here there are several instances where there might be someone manipulating the scan results. I know Myrdraal has been in the center of things since the beginning, so I will

Unvote

Vote: Myrdraal

[Myrddraal]

I don't get it... what is it that makes me a good lynch candidate? You might disagree with my arguments regarding Monty, but how does that translate into a vote for me?

[Myrddraal]

The tally as I make it:


<tbody>
Voter
Votee







Autolycus


Myrddraal
Sooh
ElBarto
Montmorency


El Barto
Myrddraal

5
2
2
1


GeneralHankerchief
Sooh







Golden1Knight
El Barto







Ituralde
Sooh







Johnhughtom








Landlubber
Myrddraal







Montmorency
Myrddraal







Myddraal
Montmorency







Nightbringer
Myrddraal







Sooh
Myrddraal







Zack
El Barto






</tbody>

I have highlighted in bold the names of those who were not present at the townie protection of Visor, for your consideration.

I'm still a little bit taken aback by this turn of events.

Monty has been caught out with incorrect scans. I've listed half a dozen other examples of suspicious behaviour on his part, about half of which he has addressed, mostly by dismissing them with no counter-argument other than to blame me. His defence is to accuse his accuser for all of his own inconsistencies.

[GeneralHankerchief]

I am going to laugh so hard when the game ends and it gets revealed that both of you were town.

[Montmorency]

His defence is to accuse his accuser for all of his own inconsistencies.

Precisely.


Monty has been caught out with incorrect scans.

Incorrect? PIS. :smug:

[Myrddraal]

Incorrect? PIS. :smug:

I'm sorry, I don't speak acronym. :wiseguy:


I am going to laugh so hard when the game ends and it gets revealed that both of you were town.

I wish I could believe it, but I can't reconcile it with the evidence in front of my eyes.

[Sooh]

I don't get it... what is it that makes me a good lynch candidate? You might disagree with my arguments regarding Monty, but how does that translate into a vote for me?

I don't disagree with your points, but as I see it if Monty is the scanner then somebody who knows who he's scanning has to be the one who gives the misreadings about said person as well. I figured that maybe eliminating those people would give correct scans. Of course then that would mean we would have to believe that mafia wouldn't kill Monty once he has outlived his purpose as someone who can be used to frame innocents. It's a tough call. Monty could also be mafia from where I stand, but I think perhaps this is a better way to go in terms of eliminating mafia.

[Myrddraal]

Right, so you accept that in order for there to be a 'forger' role in this game, they would need to forge both alignment and previous night actions (as this is what Monty claims to get, although he regularly forgets about the past night actions bit). To do this the forger would need to know who was being targeted for a scan by Monty.

It follows that it must be someone who knows who Monty is going to scan. For the record, the only scan I have had any idea about in advance is last-nights' scan (GH told me he had asked Monty to scan you).

When Monty 'outed' DC as scum, he correctly stated that he had done nothing that night. So the person doing the forgery would have to have correctly guessed that dcmort would be inactive that night. Incidentally, if there is a serial killer still alive out there who attacked Monty, you must have known at that stage that Monty was making it up.

It's all very very far fetched. Surely it's much more likely that Monty is leading the town by the nose?

I don't really doubt that Monty has some tracking ability (it would have been incredibly bold to fabricate a tracker role from day 1 without something to back it up). But with both edse and Sooh, his 'results' have been contradicted by the in-game write-ups. I suggest that he is a Mafia aligned or independent (non-town) tracker with his own agenda, making up results when it suits him, and getting caught-out in the process.
Montmorency, I'm still curious about the 'ho-hum' result you say you got for both Sooh and Edse, despite being very clear and specific at the time of your Edse accusation.

[Myrddraal]

Just to stress the point a little more - let's suppose Monty is innocent, and he will from now on be very carefully keeping his scan targets to himself, and submitting them 5 minutes before the night deadline.

The mafia will surely kill him tonight. An accurate scanner is far to risky for the Mafia to keep around in the late game.

Actually, this should have happened last night... but it didn't.

[Golden1Knight]

I'm totally confused.

Unvote; Vote: Sooh.

She voted against Myrddraal without explaining exactly why, as if merely trying to save herself. And since she was appointed as guilty by the alleged scan, maybe we should lynch her anyway, for safety.

[Golden1Knight]

Double post, sorry.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Just to stress the point a little more - let's suppose Monty is innocent, and he will from now on be very carefully keeping his scan targets to himself, and submitting them 5 minutes before the night deadline.

The mafia will surely kill him tonight. An accurate scanner is far to risky for the Mafia to keep around in the late game.

Actually, this should have happened last night... but it didn't.

Under my hypothesis, Sooh knew in advance that Monty was going to be protected (because I had a large group of five on it, auto's mess-up of the orders nonwithstanding) and decided to go for a safer target.

[Myrddraal]

Edit: accidental duplicate post

[Myrddraal]

Under my hypothesis, Sooh knew in advance that Monty was going to be protected (because I had a large group of five on it, auto's mess-up of the orders nonwithstanding) and decided to go for a safer target.

Fair point. The Mafia have shown they are able to overcome protection groups, but I suppose in the alternative hypothesis Edse would have been the second Mafioso, and perhaps that would mean they couldn't overcome protection groups any more.

But I really struggle to believe that Edse was Mafia given his presence in the Visor write-up. Monty himself claims that his Edse result was tampered with. In that case, I guess that those that attacked Visor are still alive, but actively chose that only one of them should show up that night to feed the theory of Edse's guilt.

[GeneralHankerchief]

But I really struggle to believe that Edse was Mafia given his presence in the Visor write-up. Monty himself claims that his Edse result was tampered with.

This seems to be a critical point in your argument against Monty, but I admit that I don't really follow. Could you explain in detail what you mean by this?

[Myrddraal]

In the write-up of the attempted protection of Visor, three groups were present. At first, they were reported as a group of 3, a group of 4 and a group of 2.

The group of two was me and Ituralde. The group of four was your group GH, with khaan initially assuming I was part of that group as well (I was cc'd on the orders) but correcting himself after I pointed out that the numbers didn't seem right. The last group (of three) was an Armouz group of jht, Landlubber and edse. This was claimed in thread by edse.

It's after edse posted this information that Monty announced that his scan must have been spoofed. Actually, both mine and Monty's arguments start with this point - his scan did not match the line-up of the protection. His argument is that obviously I somehow spoofed his results, forging not only the alignment but the history of night-actions. I contend that he's making it up as he goes along.

I highly doubt that Mafioso can appear twice in a write-up, once in the protection group and once as the killer. It directly contradicts Monty's claim that edse was killing Visor. I especially doubt it after khaan went to the trouble of correcting his numbers.

[johnhughthom]

My gut says Vote: Myrddraal

[Zack]

I highly doubt that Mafioso can appear twice in a write-up, once in the protection group and once as the killer.
Why? There's precedent.

[Zack]

I find it kinda weird how gung-ho you are about beating that drum (about people appearing in the writeups). You just played in Pirate Ship where keeping track of that turned out to be mostly a distraction.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Alright, so operating under the assumption that there were three original scum, the Visorslash attack happened when there were two of them left (since dcmort's guilt appears not to be in question). They both appear in the writeup - silver mask and pearl mask.

The (revised) protection groups that night were 3-3-2. We know that they would have failed no matter what because some game mechanic caused all protection on Visor that night to be nullified. We're not sure if this was an innate ability or a mafia weapon, but my guess is the latter. Sooh and edse were both allegedly in on the protections - Sooh CC'd her orders to me and edse claimed so in the thread and this was never called into question.

So, at the moment, unless the mafia can be two people at once, the numbers do not appear to match up.

Monty?

[Myrddraal]

A distraction certainly, but not actually directly wrong. If there's precedent, I don't know about it. Note that if you believe that this is likely to be the case, then both mine and Monty's arguments are wrong, a side-show that the mafia are laughing at. In that case, you shouldn't be voting for me.

But really, my argument is not that I am certain (although I am, of course, certain of my own innocence). My argument is about what is most likely.

The bottom line, which is the more likely?
a) The mafia can duplicate themselves in write-ups, and both Monty and I are at each other's throats for no good reason.
b) I, somehow, knew who Monty was going to scan (even though, as far as I know, the only person he told was ATPG). I spoofed both the alignment and the past activity of his targets. When spoofing dc's scan, I correctly guessed that dc would be inactive that night.
c) Monty got caught out in a lie.

My adamance is clearly turning people's guts against me (what an unpleasant metaphor) but from my perspective I'm really struggling to see how Monty's argument is believable.

[GeneralHankerchief]

I find it kinda weird how gung-ho you are about beating that drum (about people appearing in the writeups). You just played in Pirate Ship where keeping track of that turned out to be mostly a distraction.

It's a fine distinction. I included people as many times as the night actions called for, but never had people double up in one scene (an example of this was the night Curio died - Csargo was both protecting Curio and being recruited by the mafia, but they took place in different sections of the writeup). The Visor attack was clearly a single scene.

[Sooh]

I'm totally confused.

Unvote; Vote: Sooh.

She voted against Myrddraal without explaining exactly why, as if merely trying to save herself. And since she was appointed as guilty by the alleged scan, maybe we should lynch her anyway, for safety.Did you miss the part where I explained? Because I did. One of the people who knew Monty's targets might be mafia, and from what I've been able to find out those people would be Myrdraal and GH. I picked one.

[Myrddraal]

Sooh, you agree with my points, but your vote is on me. What do you think of likelihood of the three options (a, b, c) I posted above?

[seireikhaan]

Gathered once more in the courtyard, the royalty and nobility were greeted by such a stunningly pleasant day of weather that they could not help but gaze in aw at the horizon, taking time from their inquisition to appreciate the simple beauty of the world. For approximately four hours, not a word was uttered as all basked in the glory of that which they were a part of.

Of course, all good things must come to an end, and finally Kavehir mustered everyone back to their duties. A vociferous round of debate ensued, with accusations and counter-accusations ultimately resulting in Myrddraal being handed over to the Emperor in chains, all the while protesting the insanity and injustice of it all.

"Myddraal, we have found you guilty of subverting the empire and its citizens. No amount of protest nor coercion on your part will change your destiny," Kavehir proclaimed. "If, indeed, you are innocent, then you will find peace in the next life." With a great swing of his sword, Kavehir sent Myddraal's head fro his neck. "Come, my friends and subjects! Today was a glorious, beautiful day, but let us continue with our progress tomorrow! I am sure Providence will reward us once more!"



Myrddraal 5(El Barto, landlubber, Nightbringer, Monty, Sooh, JHT
Sooh 3(GH, Ituralde, GoldenKnight)
Monty 1 (Myrddraal
El Bart 1 (Zack)






Alive:


Autolycus
El Barto
GeneralHankerchief
Golden1Knight
Ituralde
Johnhughtom
Landlubber
Montmorency
Nightbringer
Sooh
Zack


Lynched:

Abstain (D1)
Andres (D2)
ACIN (D3)
Dcmort(D4)
Edse(D5)
Myrddraal(D6)

Killed:

Csargo (D1)
Bsmith (N2)
Ironside (N3)
Kagemusha(N4)
Visorslash (N5)
Askthepizzaguy(N6)

Attacked:

Ironside (N1)
Golden1Knight (N2)
Montmorency(N3)
Ituralde(N4)

[GeneralHankerchief]

Monty, just because you got your lynch and it's night phase doesn't mean I'm going to let you off the hook for this:


Alright, so operating under the assumption that there were three original scum, the Visorslash attack happened when there were two of them left (since dcmort's guilt appears not to be in question). They both appear in the writeup - silver mask and pearl mask.

The (revised) protection groups that night were 3-3-2. We know that they would have failed no matter what because some game mechanic caused all protection on Visor that night to be nullified. We're not sure if this was an innate ability or a mafia weapon, but my guess is the latter. Sooh and edse were both allegedly in on the protections - Sooh CC'd her orders to me and edse claimed so in the thread and this was never called into question.

So, at the moment, unless the mafia can be two people at once, the numbers do not appear to match up.

Monty?

[GeneralHankerchief]

Neither will I do so should your plan at night "accidentally" backfire and leave me dead.

[Myrddraal]

Oh yeah... the deadli*swish*thunk*gargle gargle*

:hanged:

[Askthepizzaguy]

I just want to take this moment to point out that I am still dead.

This is quite disconcerting. Usually the white mage is here by now to rez me.

I suppose the maggots can have their fun, but if I'm not alive by morning I'm going to be pretty smelly. I blame that jerk Abstain for all this.

[Montmorency]

I've been a bit busy, but yes, the attack is going through, orders pending.


Monty, just because you got your lynch and it's night phase doesn't mean I'm going to let you off the hook for this:

These are the same concerns I sent myself the other day, to both you and Myrd in various forms.

But here's (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?151040-The-Inquisition-In-Play&p=2053671051&viewfull=1#post2053671051) when I first mentioned it - it was in-thread, at the time Visor was claiming scanner to distract the Mafia attack:



What makes you certain that the mafia can't double up on night actions? It's a reassuring assumption that appearing in the writeup fully clears a person, but it's not necessarily a correct one. Locking ourselves into this idea of thinking is a very poor decision.

OK, but presumably Mafia can't shadow-clone themselves.

If 9 people were with Visor, and 2 scum attacked, then those 9 cannot be scum unless we assume Visor got his scan wrong - unlikely given that he received the Kage treatment for his efforts.

I will check the backdoors if I have too. Just remember, again: If I am wrong here then the scum must be some of Zack, Barto, and Nightbringer

[Myrddraal]

Sooh, you agree with my points, but your vote is on me. What do you think of likelihood of the three options (a, b, c) I posted above?
@Sooh (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/member.php?u=99877), I'm interested in your assessment. Don't feel it would be rude to reply just because I've expired :smile:

[Sooh]

I'll get to it. Right now I'm at work and can't really sit down and assess the situation.

[Sooh]

A distraction certainly, but not actually directly wrong. If there's precedent, I don't know about it. Note that if you believe that this is likely to be the case, then both mine and Monty's arguments are wrong, a side-show that the mafia are laughing at. In that case, you shouldn't be voting for me.

But really, my argument is not that I am certain (although I am, of course, certain of my own innocence). My argument is about what is most likely.

The bottom line, which is the more likely?
a) The mafia can duplicate themselves in write-ups, and both Monty and I are at each other's throats for no good reason.
b) I, somehow, knew who Monty was going to scan (even though, as far as I know, the only person he told was ATPG). I spoofed both the alignment and the past activity of his targets. When spoofing dc's scan, I correctly guessed that dc would be inactive that night.
c) Monty got caught out in a lie.

My adamance is clearly turning people's guts against me (what an unpleasant metaphor) but from my perspective I'm really struggling to see how Monty's argument is believable.You asked what I thought of your scenarios, well, I don't know much about playing this kind of mafia at all. The only experience I have is by watching Pizza play with you guys. All I've ever played besides that is mafia where communication has happened solely in thread. This is unusual for me.

From where I stand and what I know about this kind of mafia I haven't seen anywhere that people can duplicate themselves in writeups. I don't know if that would be likely or not at all. I kind of depend on you guys there to tell me whether or not this is possible.

As for your point b, from what I understood in this thread it sounded as though you and GH were both part of the group who knew in advance who Monty was going to scan. If that is not correct and you said that somewhere that I missed then I apologize. It is possible that some of the scans have been correct while others have been compromised, so dc may have been actual mafia for all I know, and then someone started the manipulation.

Your scenario c is also a possibility, but one I think would be dangerous to assume. If Monty is in fact a scanner then it would be bad of us as a town to lynch him. However I assume as well that mafia will make sure to get rid of him once he has outplayed his role and starts becoming dangerous for them instead of useful.

As for which one is more likely I don't really think either of these are mutually exclusive, and clearly given where my vote was at I didn't trust you to be the good townie. Now whether or not I was right remains to be seen.

[El Barto]

I will check the backdoors if I have too. Just remember, again: If I am wrong here then the scum must be some of Zack, Barto, and Nightbringer
FTFY. I am not mafia.

The only experience I have is by watching Pizza play with you guys. All I've ever played besides that is mafia where communication has happened solely in thread. This is unusual for me.
Nearly six years ago we scientifically proved that he's always the mafia. Thus we can conclude that you only know how to play as mafia. Therefore, since you're playing, you must be mafia. My logic is undeniable.

[Sooh]

FTFY. I am not mafia.

Nearly six years ago we scientifically proved that he's always the mafia. Thus we can conclude that you only know how to play as mafia. Therefore, since you're playing, you must be mafia. My logic is undeniable.*giggle*

I must hear more about this!

[El Barto]

Happy to oblige, my fair lady.

Civfanatics (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=8825876) is where you must go.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Happy to oblige, my fair lady.

Civfanatics (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=8825876) is where you must go.
I was, of course, not a mafioso in the game linked above.

Always mafia, except most of the time when I'm not.

[El Barto]

Hush! You're dead, therefore you can't post and you haven't posted because dead people don't post. I'm just trying to justify why I'll vote Sooh tomorrow.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Ah, but I can post.

And I'm not dead. I'm just restin'.

[Zack]

I was, of course, not a mafioso in the game linked above.

Always mafia, except most of the time when I'm not.
10% of the time 100% of the time.

[Sooh]

Hush! You're dead, therefore you can't post and you haven't posted because dead people don't post. I'm just trying to justify why I'll vote Sooh tomorrow.

Tsktsktsk... Not a good reasoning my dear. Looks like you're trying to invent something. Might you be the mafia we've been looking for?

[Montmorency]

GAMBIT SCHEMA CONTINGENCY BROADCAST

1. If I die at the hands of a single attacker, then it cannot have been Nightbringer.

2. There should be a total of 5 attackers on GH in the writeup.

3. My scenarios for remaining scum: El Barto + Nightbringer; Sooh; GH

:cool2:

[GeneralHankerchief]

GAMBIT RESPONSE PATTERN WHISKEY INDIA FOXTROT OSCAR MIKE VARIANT NINE NINE DASH OH THREE EIGHT SEVEN RUBBER DUCKY APOCALYPSE

1. If I die at night I am personally holding Montmorency 100% responsible.

[Montmorency]

Well, one of us is certainly going to die - unless you're legitimately scum.

[Myrddraal]

What on earth has Monty hatched... Is this the 'grand plan' stage of Mafia smoke screen?

[Zack]

GAMBIT SCHEMA CONTINGENCY BROADCAST

1. If I die at the hands of a single attacker, then it cannot have been Nightbringer.

2. There should be a total of 5 attackers on GH in the writeup.

3. My scenarios for remaining scum: El Barto + Nightbringer; Sooh; GH

:cool2:
You're that certain I'm town, even though I have no verifiable action on the group hug visor night?

[Montmorency]

In most of the cases I have provided for. Your being scum, or GoldenKnight, or landlubber, or whatever - in such a case all my secrets will have failed, and I'll throw up my hands and wait for the end-reveals.

But I think it's a good bet, assuming all orders were fixed by the end of the night/when I revealed my gambit.

[Nightbringer]

Echo delta foxtrot, do you copy?

Whiskey has screwed the pooch, adopt cal-zone contingency at 0 7345.

Teapot over and out.

[Myrddraal]

Down Whiskey! Bad dog!

[seireikhaan]

My apologies, but Thanksgiving preparations along with a secondary family issue caught me flat-footed. The game will have to be delayed for, likely, three days. Again, my apologies.

[Montmorency]

https://i.imgur.com/Qn7oYmr.gif

[Askthepizzaguy]

Yes, that'll do quite nicely. This turkey shall be cooked rotisserie-style. Mmmm.... :drool:

[Ituralde]

The suspense! The suspense!

Actually that suits me just fine, as I'm pretty busy with work and my birthday this week!

Happy Thanksgiving.

[Askthepizzaguy]

There's no suspense if you're the mafia.

:stare:

Ituralde.









I don't know if you're mafia but I'm going to harp on it until the last of my flesh has decomposed and fallen off of my bones.

[GeneralHankerchief]

My apologies, but Thanksgiving preparations along with a secondary family issue caught me flat-footed. The game will have to be delayed for, likely, three days. Again, my apologies.

Approved.

[El Barto]

Ah, but I can post.

And I'm not dead. I'm just restin'.
Oh, good, then we can paint some tiger stripes on him.

Tsktsktsk... Not a good reasoning my dear. Looks like you're trying to invent something. Might you be the mafia we've been looking for?
*These are not the mafiats you are looking for. Move along, move along.*


GAMBIT SCHEMA CONTINGENCY BROADCAST

1. If I die at the hands of a single attacker, then it cannot have been Nightbringer.

2. There should be a total of 5 attackers on GH in the writeup.

3. My scenarios for remaining scum: El Barto + Nightbringer; Sooh; GH

:cool2:

COMBAT OPERANDI: REBUT NONSENSE

1. How come? Explanation required.

2. How come? Explanation required.

3. How come? Explanation req Again, a mafiat I amn't.

My apologies, but Thanksgiving preparations along with a secondary family issue caught me flat-footed. The game will have to be delayed for, likely, three days. Again, my apologies.
But I was just watching FOX News and they told me the President had pardoned the turkey this year… have they lied to me about that as well?

[Askthepizzaguy]

Bah, if he really wants to be a god among progressives he can pardon all the turkeys. Everywhere.

And give them their freedom.

FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMM!!!1

[Sooh]

Does that mean we won't ever cook turkey?

[Askthepizzaguy]

As long as everyone else gets to eat turkeys, I will as well.

Turkeys are fat and delicious.

[Montmorency]

Thanksgiving (https://i.imgur.com/LIRanZh.png)

[El Barto]

Your gambit schema is not of successful. I is not of falling for it. Where is turkey?

[seireikhaan]

I am returned. The writeups will be up within the hour, ideally. Thank you for your patience with the delay.

[seireikhaan]

GeneralHankerchief was spending the evening achieving his weekly exercise, hoping to energize himself following the last few days of relative inertness on his part. So here he found himself at the spiral stairwell, ascending up to the third floor at breakneck pace. He would descend at his leisure to recuperate before repeating the task several more times. His first run went quite well, leaving him in good condition still. However, upon reaching the top of the staircase the second time, he discovered his routine would be interrupted. Five individuals stood there, waiting for him.

"Aha! We have discovered you at last!" The lead individual declared. "Look at you, performing this... dastardly activity, in all your brazen dastardliness! In the name of Firnaz, we sentence you to rightful retribution!"

"Wait, what do you mean, in the name of Firnaz?" The individual to his left queried as they swung to face their compatriot. "This is in the name of justice and goodness, not some festering death god!"

The first individual gasped. "You take that back, sinner! Why, why, THIS IS AN OUTRAGE! How did I end up working with some pond scum like you?!"

"Why, that is a good question, how did I end up having to even be near such a fool as one who would worship Firnaz?"

"Hmph!"

"Hmph!"

Before GeneralHankerchief knew it, the group before hid dissipated in a cloud of discontent and annoyance, leaving him to finish his exercise in peace.





Meanwhile, Montmorency was content to spend another evening in quiet meditation. There were four individuals outside his room at the moment, having shown up half an hour ago, claiming they would secure his liveliness for the night. He was thankful they allowed him the privacy of his room, while still attending to his safety. It was good to know there were still some who would fight for safety in this chaotic world they were in now. Unfortunately, his concentration was broken when he heard a scuffle and voices outside his door.

"Halt, sir Montmorency is not to be disturbed tonight," one of the guards proclaimed.

"That's no concern of yours, I think," a second voice came out. "It would be wise of you to leave us be. I have a score to settle here."

"I am afraid I cannot all-" the voice was cut off as Montmorency heard a loud thumping noise followed by yelling. The shouting reached a pitch before a gust rattled the door, followed by a few more thumps. Montmorency panicked for a moment, knowing he must find a place to shelter himself for the moment. He clambered up from his pose and scanned the room, settling for a small clothes cabinet. He scrambled inside as fast as he could, and drew the doors shut, sheltering himself in darkness. He heard the door creak open, and a man's voice called out to him.

"Come on out, Montmorency... I know you're in here..." the voice seemed to snake through the air. "I know who you are, what you are, sniveling coward... After generations of failing to find you, of thinking you were dead and gone, now the universe delivers you to me as an act of providence." There was no sound of shuffling feet, yet Montmorency was sure the intruder was not yet gone.

"Ah ha, here we are at last," the voice sauntered, now very close by. A thunderous crack exploded from just above Montmorency's head as the cabinet was shredded by a shining, curved blade. A man with flowing white hair brought the blade down upon Montmorency, who scrambled out of the way just in time to avoid it, the cabinet being completely destroyed in his stead as a blast of air flung shards of wood in every direction. He attempted to scramble towards the door, but a powerful wind knocked him into the nearby wall of marble, sucking the air from his lungs. The white-haired man levitated forward, his eyes ablaze with silver.

"Look at you, being protected by mortals. And you would cower beneath them. Even with all this knowledge and power, you are weak, just like you always have been. You don't deserve to exist in this world, in MY WORLD! The mortals will perish soon.... Now join them! PREPARE TO DIE!" The white-haired main brought his blade down in a slashing arc, slicing into Montmorency with a powerful, crushing strike that severed him from shoulder to hip. "And soon, the rest of this despicable palace will join you, coward."




"It seems we do, indeed, still have work to do," Kavehir mournfully informed the gathering in the morning. "We still have murders abound in the palace, protesting our noble endeavor. I am... sorry. I know we have lost many innocent to this. But we must march forward. Justice must be delivered. Even were I to cancel our efforts now, it would not end the suffering and injustice that would continue to be inflicted upon us. So, friends... let us end this all. Let us finally deliver justice."







Alive:


Autolycus
El Barto
GeneralHankerchief
Golden1Knight
Ituralde
Johnhughtom
Landlubber
Nightbringer
Sooh
Zack


Lynched:

Abstain (D1)
Andres (D2)
ACIN (D3)
Dcmort(D4)
Edse(D5)
Myrddraal(D6)

Killed:

Csargo (D1)
Bsmith (N2)
Ironside (N3)
Kagemusha(N4)
Visorslash (N5)
Askthepizzaguy(N6)
Montmorency(N7)

Attacked:

Ironside (N1)
Golden1Knight (N2)
Montmorency(N3)
Ituralde(N4)
GeneralHankerchief(N7)

[Montmorency]

Everything you need is in my posts.

[landlubber]

Right. There were five of us, just like Monty said there should have been.

vote:El Barto.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Will analyze after I sober up. See you all tomorrow.

[GeneralHankerchief]

In the meantime, could people involved in the hit on me come forward?

[GeneralHankerchief]

Also also, all protectors of monty are (theoretically) accounted for. The reason it failed as per feedback PM was the same reason why it failed on Visor - the protection was somehow nullified once again.

[Sooh]

So a hit of five people on GH failed because (presumably) they couldn't agree on which god they believed in?

And a protect group of four failed because ???

Assuming that everyone alive last night was involved in some kind of action that leaves us with two unaccounted for, right? Does that mean there's still two mafia out there, or were there just people who didn't manage to get in a NA?

[Zack]

Montmorency, Golden1Knight, Zack, Nightbringer, JHT, and landlubber attack General Hankerchief tonight.
Montmorency, Golden1Knight, Zack, Nightbringer, JHT, and landlubber attack General Hankerchief tonight.
I also do this I suppose
failed because not enough of the people involved believed in the same god

Everyone sent in orders and cc'd everyone else. So one person is missing.

[Zack]

Received a week ago:




As you may know by now, I am the scanner role that's been talked about lately.

But I have come to suspect that after dcmort, the Mafia has been interfering with my scans. If so, the likeliest candidate is Myrddraal. He has been around since the beginning, organizing Shahnak. Under his leadership, Kage's PR was killed off early, and I myself was attacked after I revealed to him that I was a scanner. His biggest partner was Pizza, whom I was also working with after scanning as town. But Pizza died the night after I scanned edse as scum.

I don't think he expected me to scan dcmort on the night of Kage's death (on Pizza's suggestion), but afterwards he may have been spoofing my results. After all, how likely is it that I would scan all 3 scum in a row, under such circumstances? Also strange is the change in Myrd's demeanor since dcmort's lynch. At first, he was quite eager to abet and protect me, but suddenly afterwards he has been out for my blood, as though he has not himself been kept well-informed of my role-actions.

So then, I will not reveal yet who it is that I scanned as Mafia last night, the third in a row - but I think Pizza was correct to surmise that the Shahnak group has been completely compromised from the outset.

Right now, we must organize to lynch Myrddraal. Tonight, I will explain who gave me my scan target for last night, and who that target was that flipped Mafia. We will attack the one who gave me the target, as a consolidated group. It will not succeed in killing them, but there will be a useful side-effect.

I will explain more later.


Appendix (Standing Scan Results)
Italicized are the scans I think have been spoofed

1: Visorslash, Shahnak Town, no action
2: Pizza, Firnaz Town, protects Visorslash
3: Kage, Town, protects Montmorency
4: DCMort, Mafia, does nothing, attacked Montmorency previous night
5: Edse, Mafia, Visorslash's killer
6: <redacted>, Mafia, Pizza's killer
Why did you send this to five people you haven't scanned? Did you just send it to everyone except Myrddraal? If he's mafia why did you redact your scan result, are there more than three?

Well, if my hunch is correct, then the Mafia will simply feed the results that they want to justify mislynches, and when they are satisfied they will get rid of me; this is my countermove. And of course, everyone I have scanned town is dead.

To elaborate on the first message, I think that DCMort was a legitimate scan, and the Mafia just didn't know to interfere with me yet, or didn't think it necessary. The result I got for DCMort was that he was Mafia aligned, had done nothing that night, and had attacked me the previous night. This all makes good sense, and certainly we can see that I was attacked by one person who doesn't seem to have shown up in any other writeups. I believe DCMort was the god Shahnak - god of the skies. Firnaz and Armouz would then be the killers of Kagemusha and Visorslash, and they are the ones I think are fooling me right now.

Look at the mentions of "the sea" and other identifying keywords in the kill writeups. I speculate Ironside was attacked first by Firnaz (god of death) and then by Armouz (god of sea). BSmith was killed by Armouz. In other words, the white-haired attacker should be Armouz.

Besides lynching Myrd, the idea is to mass an attack on the other individual whom I suspect (I will reveal this tonight). The attack will not succeed in killing the target, but that isn't the point. I want them to know that they will be attacked, and that the attack will somehow weaken or incriminate them. Just know that if I die, they will be conclusively shown as scum, and if my whole scenario here is misconceived then no harm, no foul. The target comes to no harm, the scan result I am concealing for now will be widely known, and that individual can be lynched without a problem as probable final-scum.

[landlubber]

2. There should be a total of 5 attackers on GH in the writeup.

There was someone missing, but Monty seems to have accounted for that person. The writeup mentions 5 people, just like Monty wanted it to.

[Zack]

GAMBIT SCHEMA CONTINGENCY BROADCAST

1. If I die at the hands of a single attacker, then it cannot have been Nightbringer.

2. There should be a total of 5 attackers on GH in the writeup.

3. My scenarios for remaining scum: El Barto + Nightbringer; Sooh; GH

:cool2:
1. Only one attacker from what I can tell, ergo not Nightbringer (and by extension El Barto, though he only notes Nightbringer here for whatever reason). So why is lubber voting Barto?

2. I don't understand why Monty expected there to only be five attackers on GH. Six people sent in orders, and out of his provided list of possible scum, only Nightbringer was involved in the attack.

3. Scan implicates sooh, message I quoted in #573 implicates GH.

Vote: sooh

[Zack]

There was someone missing, but Monty seems to have accounted for that person. The writeup mentions 5 people, just like Monty wanted it to.
I realize that, but I don't know why and he didn't publicly reveal that there were actually six people sending in orders, so I'm letting people know.

[Zack]

The Monty kill is weird to me. There were people feuding with him and calling for his head, and killing him only lends credence to his scans. It makes no sense for sooh to kill Monty, except in a wifom-y move.

A Monty kill suggests:
a) sooh is not mafia - in which case monty's scan is misleading and why kill him
b) sooh is mafia and has a partner she is afraid of being scanned
c) sooh is the lone remaining mafia and did not really think the kill through :laugh4:

[Zack]

a) sooh is not mafia - in which case monty's scan is misleading and why kill him
And before anyone counters that it gives the scan credibility and results in a mislynch, leaving a false scanner alive results in mislynches, plural. So if sooh is not mafia, a Monty kill is shortsighted. I find a kill motivated by either fear (of monty scanning the other partner) or revenge more likely. In any case I think sooh is the right lynch here.

[Sooh]

Yes, it does seem the intent is to implicate me. Either that or the kill yesterDay nullified the usefulness of Monty for the mafia. Perhaps they can't trick his scans anymore?

Vote: GH

He was another who knew who Monty was going to scan at night from what I've been able to find out. It doesn't fully make sense to me, but it's a lead perhaps?

[Zack]

Oh wait are there third parties. shit

[Zack]

Clearly someone was afraid of future scans

[Sooh]

If there is a third party, would they have hidden within the various religious groups? It might be a good way to hide themselves, however if they can't perform actions with them because they don't really belong to the religion it could account for so many actions failing or being nullified.

[Ituralde]

This is the second time a supposed power role could not be protected. I think there's two possibilites for this:

1.: This is just a feature of power roles in this game of Mafia.
2.: The Mafia have an ability to negate protections, which they can use every second night.

This would explain why the Mafia waited with their attack on Montmorency one additional night.
I don't really know what to make of Montmorencys stipulations prior to his death. Was this meant to show us, whom he scanned after Sooh?

Either way Sooh and GH both appear on his list. I'm still acting according to my previous post on the matter. Following my cases 1 and 2.
That means Sooh and GH both have to die. Starting from the top:

Vote: Sooh

[GeneralHankerchief]

Random thoughts/observations, not really listed in any particular order:

1. Monty PM'd me last night, requesting protection. After some serious internal doubts (mostly based off my displeasure of how the last day phase went down), I decided to abide by his request, though I didn't tell him.

2. Both Ituralde and Sooh PM'd me separately last night, wondering about a night action.

3. I was initially planning on grouping up with just Ituralde and autolycus and protecting somebody random.

4. The ultimate group ended up being myself, Ituralde, autolycus, and Sooh, protecting Monty (we basically just drafted autolycus in, but he did CC orders). All four of us are theoretically accounted for in the writeup.

5. 11 people alive as of last night (10 now). Five people were attacking me. Four were protecting Monty. There was Monty's attacker. Presumably, Monty was off scanning rather than attacking me (though could someone who attacked me please confirm that?). That's eleven.

6. Operating under the ASSUMPTION that the general principles of townie actions in these games holds and no individual can attack and/or protect more than one target at night, we need to find our missing attacker.

7. Please note that the assumption listed under 6 is just that, an assumption, and it's convenient for us at best but is by no means guaranteed to actually hold.

8. If the assumption under 6 does hold, then we simply need to find our missing link. In this case, the Shahnak Four of myself, Ituralde, autolycus, and Sooh are accounted for. I don't know the exact makeup of the group that attacked me, and if Monty's scenarios under his "gambit schema contingency broadcast" are correct, the evidence points most clearly to El Barto.

9. In case I haven't made this clear yet, I would really like to know the names of everybody in the group that attacked me.

10. I really don't think it's that simple.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now we're starting to venture more into the realm of conjecture.

11. Let's assume that El Barto was the person Monty left out in his group of five. Who was the sixth person that Zack referred to?

12. Putting that line of discussion out of mind for the time being (though by no means should we forget about it entirely), my pet theory is that Barto simply didn't do anything at night, much as he claims he has done all game.

13. Please keep in mind that point 12 will be most likely rendered invalid by clarification from Zack/someone else. MOVING ON THOUGH.

14. I don't think it's that cut-and-dried. khaan didn't quite reach his stated goal of 25 players, which meant he would probably have to do some rebalancing, but this is the same person who singlehandedly wrecked the .Org's metagame in 2008 in Netherworld 1 by including a third party role that completely fooled the town and ensured that third party roles would never be trusted on this forum again. He's included these types of roles in pretty much every single non-vanilla game he's ever hosted. There's going to be a third party role here.

15. It might have been Kage. He could have withheld some of his more sinister abilities when revealing to Myrd and Pizza(?) among others. Let's assume otherwise though.

16. I believe that the chances are high that the third party role - if it's still alive - and our last mafioso are working together in some capacity, though whether it's a formal alliance or a temporary partnership remains to be seen.

17. The town still has a weapon of sorts: There are still four active Shahnaks. If we all stay alive, we could vig someone at night. Potentially clear out the Nightbringer/El Barto kerfluffle by lynching one today and killing the other at night.

18. Screw that.

19. We have a guilty result on Sooh. We don't know if it's spoofed or not.

20. Everything Zack has posted since the phase ended, especially in regards to motives for killing Monty, makes sense.

21. Once again, there were enough people protecting the victim to theoretically make him safe at night.

22. Once again, as per the Visor kill, the reason the protection failed is because the protection got nullified in some fashion.

23. Evidence is mounting that this is not a passive trait. This is far more likely to be a weapon in the hands of one scum or another.

24. Sooh, once again, appears to be unaware of why the target she was supposed to be protecting is still dead:


And a protect group of four failed because ???

25. It was made abundantly clear in the feedback PM I received why Monty is dead. It was the exact same reason why Visor died.

26. The logical conclusion is that Sooh was off doing something nefarious that superseded her supposed protection of Monty. Maybe she can possess somebody to show up but not have them be effective (khaan's had those roles before). Maybe she was there but it wasn't her primary action and thus it doesn't count.

27. Combine the above with Sooh's guilty scan, plus everything that Zack and Monty mentioned, and I think we have our scum, or at least, somebody who definitely needs to be dead.

Vote: Sooh

[GeneralHankerchief]

Further food for thought that I'm not going to overanalyze just yet:

Csargo voted for El Barto long after he died:


Vote:El Barto

lulz

This was the round edse was eventually lynched. It also counted.


"Do we have any final words before we send dear Edse here to the afterlife?" Kavehir requested of the audience.

"No...." A spectral voice rang out as the spirit of Csargo shimmered back into being, his form a violet outline of his mortal form. It raised an accusatory finger at El Barto. "Him..." The scribe looked to the emperor in shock at the development.

"Do.... does that count, my lord?"

Kavehir was stunned as well, but gathered himself with a shake of his head. "Yes, yes it does! It seems our work is not yet done! The dead have spoken! Continue onwards, find us the most guilty party of all!"

Official pre-tiebreak tally from that round:


El Barto 3(GoldenKnight, landlubber, Csargo)

Csargo's reaction:


I'd take my vote back if I could.

Could spin this either way. Mafia looking to save edse (lending credence to a dcmort/edse/Sooh scumteam). Mafia looking to save Barto (lending credence to a dcmort/Barto/Nightbringer? team), possibly by use of reverse psychology. Someone protown. Third party looking to set up a cult or something. A troll, maybe. Not dealing with it right now, but good to know.

[Sooh]

Alright. It seems like I will be the lynch today. Basically I've ended up in a position that needs to be resolved. Even if you can see no other conceivable lynch today I would still like for you to consider who is next in line for tomorrow.

I am not privy to most of the information Monty may have left behind unless it has all been posted in this thread. I hope some of you can clarify: Why are Nightbringer and El Barto linked together when the other suspects Monty had are not? Why are these people specifically his suspects? Do you know why the rest of the list are clear? Obviously you all know your own role, but Myrdraal, whose scans were less than perfect, still doesn't mention any of them in his post. Was it because they weren't part of some network that could have manipulated or blocked him or what was it?

From thread actions alone I have found it extremely hard to find likely suspects, and similarly to clear other people. My vote is on GH, because he has been eager about my lynch for a while, possibly because he set it up for it to happen. I originally suspected Myrdraal of being the source of Monty's misinformation, but GH also had information from the inner circles as far as I know.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Why are Nightbringer and El Barto linked together when the other suspects Monty had are not? Why are these people specifically his suspects? Do you know why the rest of the list are clear?

For the sake of openness, I do not know the answer to any of these questions, though I would certainly appreciate clarification as well.


Obviously you all know your own role, but Myrdraal, whose scans were less than perfect, still doesn't mention any of them in his post.

This is confusing. To my knowledge, Myrddraal was a regular, Shahnak-worshipping townie. Unless you mean Monty?


From thread actions alone I have found it extremely hard to find likely suspects, and similarly to clear other people.

GIGANTIC scumtell here.


I originally suspected Myrdraal of being the source of Monty's misinformation, but GH also had information from the inner circles as far as I know.

Let's put this out in the open. My "loop" consisted of various one-on-one conversations with Myrddraal, Pizza, and Monty. I had a brief conversation with Myrddraal early on when I gained his trust via my volunteering to be attacked in the Shahnak group. This reignited a couple of phases before his death when the game was heating up. Pizza and I started chatting the day that dcmort was eventually lynched. I was going hard after someone else (possibly Sooh) and he let me know about the guilty result on dcmort. Monty claimed scanner to me in private the round edse was lynched when, at the time, I was gunning hard for him.

If you'll notice, all three of them are dead. Monty and Myrd turned on each other, and Pizza got nightkilled. I don't have any "loop" anymore. I was also left out of Monty's GAMBIT OPERATION ALPHA SIGMA THETA or whatever aside from him rather flippantly PMing me to ensure that he'd have protection at night. Everything I know about his latest plan comes from information gleaned in the thread and I would still love to know who all was part of it and to what extent.

----------

Finally, Sooh, you're avoiding the issue here. I'm not going after you because of a scan, although that certainly helps. I'm going after you because twice now, your initial reaction to the nightkills does not match up with the feedback PMs, from the host, that you should have received. At all.

Ituralde knew why the protections on Visor and Monty failed. Myrddraal knew. You didn't.

[Golden1Knight]

Vote: Sooh.

[Zack]

GH, I already provided the list of names: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?151040-The-Inquisition-In-Play&p=2053672700&viewfull=1#post2053672700 it was my first post this phase

[Zack]

I guess we can assume Monty was the one who didn't participate in the attack, but then I don't get why he went to the trouble of including himself in the first place.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Ah, must've glossed over that one when looking at your PM exchange with Monty.

Best option I can think is that Monty "included" himself so as to deter people from bailing out - i.e. the attempt was going through regardless.

There's also the possibility that Monty actually *was* present for the attack and one of the other five skipped out to kill him in the other part of the writeup. Seems too rudimentary though, and I think Monty would've rather had another scan in.

Still uncertain as to why he singled out Nightbringer and Barto.

[Zack]

I think Nightbringer, me, and Barto were the only ones unaccounted for on the night everyone protected Visor. For whatever reason Monty did not suspect me out of those three.

[johnhughthom]

Nothing to add but Vote:Sooh

[El Barto]

Right. There were five of us, just like Monty said there should have been.

vote:El Barto.

COMBAT OPERANDI: REFERENCE
See post #558. Anyone who knows his Hussie will understand me.

4. The ultimate group ended up being myself, Ituralde, autolycus, and Sooh, protecting Monty (we basically just drafted autolycus in, but he did CC orders). All four of us are theoretically accounted for in the writeup.

5. 11 people alive as of last night (10 now). Five people were attacking me. Four were protecting Monty. There was Monty's attacker. Presumably, Monty was off scanning rather than attacking me (though could someone who attacked me please confirm that?). That's eleven.
Yes, but given that I did not participate in any actions whatsoever (the people in those groups can confirm it), then your numbers do not add up. 11 people: you and Monty plus five attacking you and four guarding him… plus me, 12.

27. Combine the above with Sooh's guilty scan, plus everything that Zack and Monty mentioned, and I think we have our scum, or at least, somebody who definitely needs to be dead.

Vote: Sooh

COMBAT OPERANDI: ELECTIONS
Vote: Sooh

Vote: Sooh.

Nothing to add but Vote:Sooh
Incidentally, what have these two voting lurkers been up to?

[El Barto]

OOC: I had to fix some broken tags in the post above so vote:Sooh.

[seireikhaan]

Writeup in progress.

[seireikhaan]

For the first time in a while, the inquisition's efforts were singularly driven, focused, and solemn. As soon as it was reconvened, attention was shone upon Sooh, with several people claiming documents from the deceased Montmorency proved that Sooh wass, in fact, the guilty party attempting to destroy the royal family. Sooh, naturally, protested, but a stream of accusations continued forth. When the sun was finally ready to set, Sooh was presented to Emperor Kavehir.

"This is ludicrous," Sooh protested as the gathering circled around.

"Yes, yes, we get it," Kavehir spoke down to Sooh. "You think this pronouncement of your guilt absurd. Yet, all gathered seem to believe the evidence. So," he continued, drawing his longsword. "It is time-"

"No, not that," Sooh sneered. "After all, that would not be inaccurate," Sooh casually said. "What is absurd is that this pathetic mortal thinks to strike me down!" Sooh's eyes blazed a shimmering silver, and a blast of wind emanated, knocking down those gathered around. With ease, Sooh leaped to the stage where Kavehir hosted executions, a long, curved blade drawn.

"You blaspheming mortal, you and your family have called down upon yourselves the wrath of the heavens!" Sooh proclaimed in a booming voice. "The end of days is upon you. The age of Shahnak is dawned! The other gods were too weak-willed, but I will restore order. Now die!" Sooh lunged forward with a strike against the Emperor, sinking the edge into his shoulder. The Emperor glared back at Sooh, grasped the blade in his shoulder with his right hand, and yanked it out. A golden glow began to swirl around Kavehir.

"You think me and my family just mere mortals?" He asked, eyes glaring dangerously at Sooh. "I am Kavehir, son of Ensehir, descendant of Baharash, He Who Creates. I am no mortal, but a demi-god! This is my rightful place, as ruler of this world, and none will take it from me!" He flung Sooh's blade to the side and advanced slowly, sending a panicking Sooh walking backwards. In a flash, he was in front of Sooh, and in an instant, impaled Sooh with his blade, straight into the chest. The golden glow from Kavehir wrapped around them both, glowing brighter until none could see the two up upon the stage.

When it dissipated, Emperor Kavehir was alone, Sooh unable to be seen anywhere. He looked down upon the Inquisition with a bashful smile and scratched the back of his head. "Well, I suppose that little secret is out. We'd been rather hoping to not anger the gods with that announcement, but it seems we're well beyond that, I suppose, aren't we?" The nobles chuckled a bit at the Emperor's attitude about the whole deal. "Still, I know many of you here worshipped Shahnak.... Can I count on your support, even still?"

"Yes, my lord!" A chorus rang back to him uniformly.

"Excellent, excellent! Well, I am very confident now that we are nearly in the clear! Let us rest tonight, and be ready for victory tomorrow! Well done, inquisition!"







Sooh 5 (Zack, Ituralde, GH, GoldenKnight, El Barto)
GH 1 (Sooh)
El Barto 1 (Landlubber)



Alive:


Autolycus
El Barto
GeneralHankerchief
Golden1Knight
Ituralde
Johnhughtom
Landlubber
Nightbringer
Zack


Lynched:

Abstain (D1)
Andres (D2)
ACIN (D3)
Dcmort(D4)
Edse(D5)
Myrddraal(D6)
Sooh (D7)

Killed:

Csargo (D1)
Bsmith (N2)
Ironside (N3)
Kagemusha(N4)
Visorslash (N5)
Askthepizzaguy(N6)
Montmorency(N7)

Attacked:

Ironside (N1)
Golden1Knight (N2)
Montmorency(N3)
Ituralde(N4)
GeneralHankerchief(N7)

[Zack]

Did Monty say who he planned to scan?

[GeneralHankerchief]

I have a really bad feeling about this.

-edit- Not to me.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Okay, senseless panic is over, rationality is kicking in. I don't think khaan would have tipped his hand regarding Sooh's identity and Kavehir's powers like this if the game was still to be ongoing, or at the very least not entering a new phase (and I don't mean night/day). Think we're done after tonight, for better or for worse.

[GeneralHankerchief]

New pet theory: Kage was the neutral-to-evil third party role and had us all fooled. Mafia killing him was a stroke of luck for the town. From what we know of the roles (the only other revealed power role being a likely town-aligned Monty) it makes sense from a balance perspective.

Or, alternatively, Kage was good, the evil third party role is still out there, and we're all about to die.

Head says first scenario, gut says second. For once I'm leaning to my head.

[Zack]

Monty also directly implicated you, so I'm trying not to roll my eyes at your performance here.

[Zack]

posting this PM exchange again, emphasis mine




As you may know by now, I am the scanner role that's been talked about lately.

But I have come to suspect that after dcmort, the Mafia has been interfering with my scans. If so, the likeliest candidate is Myrddraal. He has been around since the beginning, organizing Shahnak. Under his leadership, Kage's PR was killed off early, and I myself was attacked after I revealed to him that I was a scanner. His biggest partner was Pizza, whom I was also working with after scanning as town. But Pizza died the night after I scanned edse as scum.

I don't think he expected me to scan dcmort on the night of Kage's death (on Pizza's suggestion), but afterwards he may have been spoofing my results. After all, how likely is it that I would scan all 3 scum in a row, under such circumstances? Also strange is the change in Myrd's demeanor since dcmort's lynch. At first, he was quite eager to abet and protect me, but suddenly afterwards he has been out for my blood, as though he has not himself been kept well-informed of my role-actions.

So then, I will not reveal yet who it is that I scanned as Mafia last night, the third in a row - but I think Pizza was correct to surmise that the Shahnak group has been completely compromised from the outset.

Right now, we must organize to lynch Myrddraal. Tonight, I will explain who gave me my scan target for last night, and who that target was that flipped Mafia. We will attack the one who gave me the target, as a consolidated group. It will not succeed in killing them, but there will be a useful side-effect.

I will explain more later.


Appendix (Standing Scan Results)
Italicized are the scans I think have been spoofed

1: Visorslash, Shahnak Town, no action
2: Pizza, Firnaz Town, protects Visorslash
3: Kage, Town, protects Montmorency
4: DCMort, Mafia, does nothing, attacked Montmorency previous night
5: Edse, Mafia, Visorslash's killer
6: <redacted>, Mafia, Pizza's killer
Why did you send this to five people you haven't scanned? Did you just send it to everyone except Myrddraal? If he's mafia why did you redact your scan result, are there more than three?

Well, if my hunch is correct, then the Mafia will simply feed the results that they want to justify mislynches, and when they are satisfied they will get rid of me; this is my countermove. And of course, everyone I have scanned town is dead.

To elaborate on the first message, I think that DCMort was a legitimate scan, and the Mafia just didn't know to interfere with me yet, or didn't think it necessary. The result I got for DCMort was that he was Mafia aligned, had done nothing that night, and had attacked me the previous night. This all makes good sense, and certainly we can see that I was attacked by one person who doesn't seem to have shown up in any other writeups. I believe DCMort was the god Shahnak - god of the skies. Firnaz and Armouz would then be the killers of Kagemusha and Visorslash, and they are the ones I think are fooling me right now.

Look at the mentions of "the sea" and other identifying keywords in the kill writeups. I speculate Ironside was attacked first by Firnaz (god of death) and then by Armouz (god of sea). BSmith was killed by Armouz. In other words, the white-haired attacker should be Armouz.

Besides lynching Myrd, the idea is to mass an attack on the other individual whom I suspect (I will reveal this tonight). The attack will not succeed in killing the target, but that isn't the point. I want them to know that they will be attacked, and that the attack will somehow weaken or incriminate them. Just know that if I die, they will be conclusively shown as scum, and if my whole scenario here is misconceived then no harm, no foul. The target comes to no harm, the scan result I am concealing for now will be widely known, and that individual can be lynched without a problem as probable final-scum.

[Zack]

In other words, Monty seemed to think his death proved GH was scum.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Give me a couple of hours and I'll address this.

[Ituralde]

All hail to Shahnank the Sky God!

Um, I mean all hail to Emperor Kavehir, of course! I repent, I repent....

This has definetly taken an interesting turn. I don't read the statement from Montmorency to implicate GH as being scum, in fact I can't really make sense of it, but GH was always my backup lynch option, so I see no reason not to go throuth with it during the next day phase. If there is one at that!

[El Barto]

So we vote for GeneralHankerchief next phase, amirite?

[Visor]

Okay, senseless panic is over, rationality is kicking in. I don't think khaan would have tipped his hand regarding Sooh's identity and Kavehir's powers like this if the game was still to be ongoing, or at the very least not entering a new phase (and I don't mean night/day). Think we're done after tonight, for better or for worse.

Can't be a scum victory.

3 possible scum alive means that 3:6 is the ratio, 3:5 after the next day so even in the worst case scenario we still dont lose after tonight.

[Montmorency]

Why are you talking about a scenario in which all 3 Mafia are still alive? That's not even on the table.

At any rate, 3 scum:5 vanilla town is so lopsided that its mirror image is like 3 scum:50 vanilla town.

[Visor]

Why are you talking about a scenario in which all 3 Mafia are still alive? That's not even on the table.

At any rate, 3 scum:5 vanilla town is so lopsided that its mirror image is like 3 scum:50 vanilla town.

I'm talking worst case scenario.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Okay, so the Monty thing. First of all, this is what he posted when making his plan public:


If you are scum, there will be a very interesting result, even though you will not be harmed. The nice thing is, it will be evident even if I do not remain alive to elaborate.

If you are not scum, then nothing informative will occur. A wasted night, but if you put so much assurance in Sooh being scum, with or without my scan result, her lynch should follow smoothly anyway.

I recognize that this can be read a couple of different ways and that a PM instruction probably takes precedence over something posted in the public thread, but because it's exasperating to defend myself against something that's not my behavior or my actions, we're rolling with it. Nothing surrounding the attempt on my life appears to be interesting or out of the ordinary. I'm doing my thing, five people show up, they start arguing about their gods, I stay alive. Pretty much what everyone thought was going to happen. Monty's death was a separate action that was completely unrelated to the attempt on my life. My guess is that Sooh was making use of her secondary ability as mafia, as outlined in khaan's OP:


There will be three mafia. The mafia will have the customary power to kill, as well as something additional during the night. There will not be conversion as a mechanic.

Secondly, and I think I made this point in one of Barto's games over the summer, just because Monty's dead doesn't necessarily make him right. He thought Sooh's scan was spoofed. Evidence is pretty strongly pointing towards her being guilty. He went hard after Myrddraal a round ago. This is less apparent, but I still believe Myrddraal was innocent. Scum or not, dead or alive, Monty is human and just as fallible as the rest of us. He chose not to reveal further information and the exact specifications of his role. That's his prerogative and I'm certainly not going to criticize him for it - I probably would have done the same thing in his shoes. But it also means we can't take anything for granted.

[El Barto]

But you haven't told me whether I should vote for you tomorrow or not, GeneralHankerchief.

Also, can someone work out Monty's wonky numbers?

[GeneralHankerchief]

But you haven't told me whether I should vote for you tomorrow or not, GeneralHankerchief.

You should not vote for me tomorrow.


Also, can someone work out Monty's wonky numbers?

I'll look into it if the game is still continuing.

[El Barto]

You should not vote for me tomorrow.
Master Hankerchief, the handwave you forgot.

I'll look into it if the game is still continuing.
Well, the game is still continuing.

…

…

…

I think.

[seireikhaan]

This was the most focused GeneralHankerchief could remember being in quite a while. He was sorting through what remained of Montmorency's quarters, determined to find answers to the questions he sought. He was sure that they were here, he was confident that Montmorency knew more than he let on. At last! This record was what he was looking for! He leafed through the parchment, eyes wide in shock as he discovered the truth of what had been happening. It was not just Shahnak! There were more! He had to warn-

BAM!

The door to the quarters shot off the hinges as the other remaining eight members of the inquisition poured in, weapons raised in hostility.

"Wait, no, I can explain!" GeneralHankerchief protested, the documents in his left hand. "It's all right here, the explanation to everything!"

"Nonsense! You are guilty, General!" A man at the head of the group proclaimed. "We, the inquisition, pass judgment upon you! Prepare to d-"

"Ah, now, now, let us here this evidence," a new voice came in from behind the doorway. All turned in astonishment as Emperor Kavehir strolled through the ruined doorway, a curt frown upon his face. "I am quite eager to see what we have here, actually." He accepted the parchment from GeneralHankerchief, who immediately launched into an explanation of what he discovered.

"My lord, it seems that Shahnak, Armouz, and Firnaz were all here, hidden in the guises of Sooh, Edse, and Dcmort."

"Interesting that this confirms the reports I received earlier today regarding certain... suspicious activities from all three of them, I wonder how he acquired this knowledge..." Kavehir interrupted. He looked upon the gathered inquisition, and a golden flame briefly lit his eyes. "Perhaps it does not matter, for he is gone." Kavehir sighed. "Then we free, at last, finally free. Thank you, thank you all. This realm may be mine, but each of you gathered here has shaped it forever. You and your families will have my eternal gratitude. It is time to disband our Inquisition..." Kavehir paused, and he allowed himself a small smile. "And it is time to celebrate."




TOWN VICTORY!






Alive:


Autolycus
El Barto
GeneralHankerchief
Golden1Knight
Ituralde
Johnhughtom
Landlubber
Nightbringer
Zack


Lynched:

Abstain (D1)
Andres (D2)
ACIN (D3)
Dcmort(D4) (Firnaz, God of the Underworld - Mafia)
Edse(D5) (Armouz, God of the Sea - Mafia)
Myrddraal(D6)
Sooh (D7) (Shahnak, God of the Sky - Mafia)

Killed:

Csargo (D1)
Bsmith (N2)
Ironside (N3)
Kagemusha(N4) (Jahandour, Royal Inquisitor - Power Town Role)
Visorslash (N5)
Askthepizzaguy(N6)
Montmorency(N7) (Ardashad, God of Secrets - Third party/Sole Survivor)

Attacked:

Ironside (N1)
Golden1Knight (N2)
Montmorency(N3)
Ituralde(N4)
GeneralHankerchief(N7)



More to come soon from my end.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Huh, I was pretty sure that Kage was the neutral/evil and Monty was the town-aligned role (though you were sketchy as hell near the end, dude).

GG all, I had fun when I wasn't completely fretting that I had it all wrong/utterly exasperated that I was lynchbait. :laugh4: Good effort to the mafia, looks like you guys just had a run of bad luck. And of course, thanks to khaan for hosting this one.

[landlubber]

yooooo

[Visor]

I knew Monty was third party since Day 2. I claimed to keep him alive.

GG all.

[GeneralHankerchief]

I knew Monty was third party since Day 2. I claimed to keep him alive.

Just out of boredom?

[Visor]

Just out of boredom?

Well, I figure Monty could help win the game, plus I could use the break. Monty getting an extra scan would help town.

The game was basically solved at that point. Me and Pizza before that were already discussing that Sooh seemed off.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Me and Pizza before that were already discussing that Sooh seemed off.

Haha, I asked him point blank what he thought of Sooh (around the time edse was lynched IIRC) and he was noncommittal. Dear god did the foursome of me-Pizza-Monty-Myrd not trust each other. :laugh4:

[Visor]

Haha, I asked him point blank what he thought of Sooh (around the time edse was lynched IIRC) and he was noncommittal. Dear god did the foursome of me-Pizza-Monty-Myrd not trust each other. :laugh4:

Myrd getting lynched was a shocker.

Its the character clash. Big name players never trust other big name players. ;)

[Sooh]

Ironically this is probably the most fun I've had as mafia in a game. Thanks guys. :)

[Montmorency]

This was definitely a town victory. Edse was the only person I didn't scan on recommendation.

Sure, Pizza only mentioned DC alongside Golden because they were both working with him - DC probably wasn't on anyone's radar at that point - but I certainly didn't see Sooh coming.

As usual, I got too invested in divining convoluted schemes and setups against me behind the scenes; I actually did believe that Myrd and GH might be spoofing me. In the end, the simplest scenario prevailed. I did what I did my last round knowing it would get me killed, but that regardless I had set things up so that town would almost-certainly lynch correctly based on the details of the outcome. Also, I didn't like the idea of facing up to 10 lynches to get to last-man-standing!

Nevertheless, 3-scan combo - it would have been beautiful had I been town.

[Montmorency]

Also, keeping with 3rd-party tradition, I walked a fine line between deceit and exposure. I told most of what I was, and most of what I said was just so, except for the played-up "scan the Emperor" victory condition I invented to soften the revelation that I was town-hostile in the end. Finally, there is one thing I never revealed, though I don't exactly know the details myself: I could never count towards any group action, and participating in a group would preclude my scanning anyone that night. What I don't know is whether I would appear in the writeup with the other group members if I actually did follow through on a group action.

Here's my role PM:


You are Ardashad, God of Secrets

You are Ardashad, God of Secrets. You are a deity long forgotten by the prominent and wealthy, only remembered in the darkest of places. When Emperor Kavehir’s father declared himself a god, you assumed an avatar and took a place at the court, to observe the events that would unfold. You know the forces that eliminated the emperor’s father were not jealous nobles, but in fact, Shahnak, Armouz, and Firnaz themselves. Their avatars are still present, and will attempt to eliminate the new Emperor. While it would please you greatly to see the pompous, arrogant gods taken down a notch and defeated, you also would greatly like to see the mortal emperor fall as well. This may be your chance to do both.

Unlike the other three gods, you are no valorous fighter. Open conflict has never been your way. While you may participate in night actions disguised as a nominal worshipper of Firnaz, your participation will be of no assistance for the group. Your power, instead, lies in information. Each night, you may investigate one person. Your investigation will reveal their alignment, their night actions that night, and their night actions the previous night. Additionally, your divination will leave a mark on them that will inform you of their night action the following night, should they have one. Lastly, on the night of your divination of a target, should they attempt to attack you, you will receive a forewarning that will assist you in escaping their clutches. Divining a target that attacks you will increase the required number of people to attack you by one for any group assisting them.

Your victory conditions are to eliminate all other forces in the game. To be blunt, your victory condition is to be the last man standing.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

In case it is not clear - you are a superpowered detective, but with serial killer's alignment. If the role seems strange and experimental, it's because it is. Good luck.

[Visor]

I did pass along to ATPG that you were not aligned with us, I don't know if he passed it on.

[Montmorency]

Yeah, that's what his transient vote on me was about during the Edse round. I'm pretty sure Myrd also indicated it in-thread somewhere,

[Myrddraal]

As usual, I got too invested in divining convoluted schemes and setups against me behind the scenes; I actually did believe that Myrd and GH might be spoofing me. In the end, the simplest scenario prevailed.

I was also completely convinced that your edse scan was incorrect, and of course that sent me off down the garden path... Unable to accept the spoofing theory, I was utterly convinced that you (Monty) had fabricated the edse result.

I was starting to think that there were two factions of killers. I thought that each religion might have a serial killer role (one of them, dcmort, having attacked Monty), with two mafioso being the white-haired and dark haired duo (which I assumed to be Monty and an accomplice).

It's interesting how one incorrect but tightly-held assumption can lead you off into a complete fabrication. Hat's off for GH for catching Sooh out on the protection failure reason, I was so side tracked by that point that I wouldn't have noticed.

I haven't played a full mafia game in years. That was fun. The highlight of the game has got to be the night of 'Visor's last dance'. Great writing @seireikhaan (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/member.php?u=22831)

[Visor]

I agree with Myrd, I really loved my writeup too, reminded me of the one I had in With Great Sacrifice, another really good writeup.

Damn you Lewwyn! :(

[edse]

I was so close to survive my lynch ~:mecry: (and would have if I'd come online half an hour earlier). At least I was right about Monty being the third party, but now I want to know the numbers for the cults.

Thanks for the game! :)

[Nightbringer]

Good game all!

[Ituralde]

I'm glad the simple scenario won out! Quite a stroke of luck, good advice by town, for Montmorency to get three guilty results in a row. Turns out the town was actually too good for it's own sake and hindered itself a bit. We could have won sooner, but the way it stood in between, I'm glad it turned out so well for the town!

Great game!

[Askthepizzaguy]

Haha, I asked him point blank what he thought of Sooh (around the time edse was lynched IIRC) and he was noncommittal. Dear god did the foursome of me-Pizza-Monty-Myrd not trust each other. :laugh4:

I didn't trust Monty because his data kept not making a whole lot of sense from an honesty and completeness perspective.

This was before I knew he was third party. Frankly I'd have lynched Monty if he hadn't kept coming up with guilty results and I didn't know he had a third party claim, because he was remarkably bad at conveying the whole truth this game.

Once he gave all the necessary information I asked for and I knew he was third party, I made a commitment to keeping him alive and risking his winning the game in a surprise upset, because he would prove a threat to the mafia if he was being honest (enough) about his role, and if he was alive in endgame someone would have lynched him in my place.

I trusted Myrd for most of the game.

I think it was during the Visor chat that I decided Sooh was scum. Visor and I, when we're both townies, tend to wreck games with our combined thinking. He has missing pieces of the puzzle inside his brain and vice-versa.

I think the universe forces us to be on opposing sides more often than not to keep it sporting for the rest of you little peoples. :P

[GeneralHankerchief]

Also, if the game was still ongoing, I was fully prepared to go scorched-earth on the people who would vote me. I put way too much thought and effort into this to be lynched endgame because a dead, fishy, claimed scanner thought that I might be guilty. :laugh4:

[Myrddraal]

I'd like to know: did the Mafia suspect Kage was a power role, or was it luck? If you did suspect, what tipped you off?

[Montmorency]

And of course: QT?

[Golden1Knight]

Had a lot of fun, thank you guys.

[Sooh]

I'd like to know: did the Mafia suspect Kage was a power role, or was it luck? If you did suspect, what tipped you off?

I really didn't know he was the PR when we killed him. I did not lie about that in the thread. It's possible that the others knew, but they didn't tell me. (Perhaps I should have known...)

[El Barto]

Ah-ha! The towniest of townies has scored yet another crushing victory over the forces of Mafia!

[GeneralHankerchief]

For what it's worth, you and Ituralde were the two people I was most confident were town at the end.

[Zack]

I played in this game, technically.

[johnhughthom]

Thanks for the game, khaan. Nice set up and great write ups.

My role in the win was, of course, crucial.

Good job town.

[autolycus]

I'm sorry I missed the denouement of this game. I was moving over Thanksgiving and thought I'd be without internet for three days, not the week it turned out to be.

[El Barto]

What mythology is this based upon?

Thanks for the game, khaan. Nice set up and great write ups.

My role in the win was, of course, crucial.

Good job town.
Well, you did show up and vote for Sooh. Also, I was right about her being scum, even if it was based on 100% faulty logic.

[Ituralde]

I have to admit that Sooh had me fooled the first time the suspicion fell on her. I couldn't detect a difference in her playstile here and in the recent Pirate ship game.
But after the second protection with her failed and she didn't know the exact reason...

So was the protection breaking the secondary power of the Mafia all the time? Was it every second night or did it only work, when the Mafia was included into the protection group by other people?
I need more details. The game is over and I'm stil in the dark, it was bad enough during the game, but now curious minds have to know! :yes:

[edse]

To pierce protection all mafia needed to attack. dcmort wasn't participating in the kill of Kage so it would have failed if there had been a proper protection. We couldn't do group orders (but we would still show up) if we did mafia orders so Sooh's protection group failed and therefore Kage was killed. After dcmort was killed, the two of us could pierce protection (only one layer I assume, but that was enough).

[seireikhaan]

What mythology is this based upon?
Nothing specific. Just an amalgamation of ideas from different mythos. The names were made by combining different parts of names in Persian.

Also, I'll have a commentary up in a few hours later tonight. Had a version mostly done but lost it because I'm an idiot.

[seireikhaan]

So the belated commentary I’d meant to do, did, and now have to re-write because I’m an idiot and let an upgrade to win10 somehow eat the previous document. Anyways, the main priority to this will be explaining the role setup and the thought processes behind the setup. That’s what I’ll touch on first, because I think it’ll make more sense to establish why I did things the way I did before going into the roles.

So the main idea behind the game was to explore a setup where the average townie had power and authority at night, but tried to avoid the pitfall of negating the basic structure of mafia. The basic idea behind mafia at its original core was an informed minority(the mafia) against an uninformed majority(the town). The basic pitfall I’ve noticed over time with games where everyone has some form of night power is what’s been called ‘spreadsheeting’ the game, or consolidating information via a network to eventually force mafia into lose-lose scenarios. That said, I also noticed people often seemed to enjoy these games, and I can see why; it’s fun to be able to do more things. It’s not as fun to feel like you got “left out” in the lotto for roles, so townies with basic power *feel* more empowered. But as a host, I wanted to scrape out the ‘information’ powers that come with night group actions. I wanted a game with groups and night actions that kept to the original core of mafia and would hopefully enable mafia to play to their original, supposed strengths.

So how did I do that? The first step was limiting who people could work together with. The idea here was that people could be and feel empowered early and in the mid-game, and could use the power of protection and vigs as an additional blunt instrument in addition to the lynch. Again, I wanted this to a blunt instrument- risks should be entailed, much like the risk of potentially lynching innocents during the day. The idea was that as the game would go on, the town would be forced to rely less on night actions as they gathered data through people’s behavior; early game, when information is scarce, actions are plentiful, and late game, when information has been acquired, care should be taken.

The second step was inserting a Mafioso into each cult, and making sure to announce it in the game description. This meant that, if people wished to try and establish large networks within their cults to coordinate, it would become likely that the mafia would become aware of it. The primary reasons I announced it was for a) clarity the town, and b) to discourage large, nebulous networks in the first place. I wanted the town to get craftier, try to operate more as “cell groups” as opposed to just large blobs. Personally I thought the idea was sound, to make night actions more difficult and to require some amount of potential sacrifice, but if you’ve got thoughts, let’em rip.

So the last part of this ‘knowledge is power’ theme I was trying to run with was the creation of Monty’s role. It was, I admit, highly experimental. The idea was that he, as a solo player, is the ultimate ‘minority’ and thus, by the logic of basic mafia, should thus be the most informed. He had alignment scan, including cult, he got information on their night actions, and people he investigated wouldn’t count towards a kill against him that night. I crammed a *lot* of power, but in retrospect, the results on night actions maybe wasn’t the right power the role needed….. Not sure. Anyways, so the thing I was really testing here was just what someone could do with a *ton* of information, but no ‘hard’ ability to enforce their win condition. In this case, that means Monty was a solo player with no kill ability – he couldn’t force his own win con. The idea in my head was to make the role try and dance between the mafia and town, hitching onto the mafia like a parasite, if you will, and offing them late. Unfortunately, that’s not really how it ended up playing out, but I’m unsure of what happened behind the scenes exactly that kept it from happening. Either way, I don’t regret the attempt- it certainly *did* show the risk and power of someone with true-scan powers. :/

So as a last thing, I’ll now just run off the roles and what all they entailed.

Kagemusha- Jahandour, Royal Inquisitor. Kage was basically a more powerful townsperson. He had no cult alignment(loyal only to the emperor), and could kill or protect with the power of two people at the start of the game. This meant he could protect with one other person, or vig with two other people. Lastly, he gained power for successful actions. This was to reward him for managing to stay alive in a game that was generally going to be hostile for him- the mafia were quite well embedded into the town, and he had to be both lucky and good to get himself promoted to maximum power. After he got successful protections or vig kills, he would then count as an additional person in these attempts- so after one successful protection, he could protect solo, and after two successful vig kills, he could vig solo. It was a lot of potential power if he could survive for a while, but even then, he had his limits- mostly related to the mafia having an ability to bypass protections, making it impossible to defend kagemusha for long once it came out he was ‘special’. That’s fine- he was supposed to be an additional weapon for the town, not something to auto-win. I think the role went about as I would have expected- Kage got a couple nice protections early and set the mafia’s progress back a bit before suspicion of his role finally did him in.


Sooh, Edse, Dcmort- Shahnak, Armouz, and Firnaz, respectively(Mafia). So the mafia’s kill power basically went like this at the start- they could kill solo, at 50% success rate(this accounts for a failure or two early), kill as two, with a 100% success rate, or send everyone and have a 100% success rate with the ability to bypass *all* protections, including Montomorency’s defense mechanism. This concept held for the mafia at all numerical points- with two Mafioso alive, both being sent would bypass protection, and a solo mafia could never be stopped. The reason I put this in was to give the mafia an advantage to their information, as well as give them the ability to deal with Kagemusha if he snowballed and got really powerful. Oh, and one other reason- I wanted the town to realize at a point that protections were not going to be enough – if they wanted to use their brute force from night actions, the would need to step up, take risks, and make a vig kill.

The other issue I want to touch on the mafia was the “shadow clone” issue, as…. Someone put it at some point, don’t remember who. The “additional thing” I gave the mafia as per the game description was that they could perform any night actions with their cult groups. If they didn’t partake in a mafia night kill, the action would stand. If they *did*, they would still partake in the group action, but be completely ineffective. This was another way to try and combat spread-sheeting, but wouldn’t totally eliminate information gathering. The town would be able to see that an action failed, and if a mafia was caught in a failed action, that could still catch up to them- this happened to a point with Suh, who ‘failed’ multiple night actions that she participated in. I don’t know if this was enough- perhaps a more creative option will be thought of at some point, but I didn’t want to give the mafia flat out two full, completed actions each, as I thought that might be too strong

Oh, and a last thing that didn’t end up mattering- a mechanic I’ve done multiple times was used again- if the mafia wanted to, they *could* have backstabbed each other at a moment’s notice for a solo victory condition. This ends up not mattering any time I do it because the mafia haven’t made it to end game, but I still like it conceptually, and it fit this game thematically. :shrug:


Montmorency – Ardashad, god of secrets. I won’t go too much in depth here because I already mentioned most of the core issues earlier. Each night, Monty could investigate one person and get an alignment scan, plus their night action that night, the night before, and a promise of a result the following night on their action then. His goal, as mentioned, was to solo survive while not actually killing anyone. The basic idea behind the role was an ‘information lord’, and it’s an archetype I’ve been wanting to try for a while. I think the core idea is actually fine, but I don’t think this was the right game, actually, to test it. I think this kind of role requires a game of more nuance. Basically, I don’t think the night actions were enough for this game, but perhaps in a game where there were more factions, or people who are flat out unaligned(ala something like capo), that would be more impactful. Still, I’m glad I tried it, even if it didn’t quite go the way I envisioned.

Yeah, so that’s about it. Thanks to everyone for playing, and if you read this for some bizarre reason and have critiques or thoughts, by all means, fire away. See you all next time!

[Visor]

Is there a mafia qt khaan?

[seireikhaan]

Is there a mafia qt khaan?
Yes, but strictly speaking, that's theirs to share, not me. It's up to them whether they want to share it.

[Askthepizzaguy]

I pretty much always read hosts' postgame commentary. Thanks for all the thought you put into this, Khaan.

I'm also pretty much always lost by your creative and unpredictable mythologies you create. I tried to guess where you put all the scums and I tried to guess the game setup and I was wrong. You keep me on my toes.

Without Monty's role in the game, I would have been off-track a lot. It's the only thing which kept me from the true suckage I pretty much always display in every Khaan game, bar none.

I wish I could say I'm getting better, but truth is, I just got luckier. And had some good townies to work with.

[GeneralHankerchief]

I think the main issue with true third party roles like Monty's is that they very often end up determining the course of the game, and not in the way the host intends. If their primary win condition is solo, then you pretty much by default have a conflict of interest: Their victory condition dictates they must win alone, but in pretty much any game that's not basic vanilla, you need allies to do well. Here, Monty sought allies among the town - a far more common choice than the mafia for a number of reasons - and did work with them in a legitimate capacity. What happened? He was accurate with his results, both as a nexus point for other townies who wanted confirmation about their suspicions (dcmort and Sooh scans), and on his own initiative (edse).

Because of this, Monty was halfway successful in that he removed one obstacle on the path to victory: the mafia. The problem was the other half. This is where I think Monty not really being able to do anything to hard-enforce his VC came back to hurt. Sure, he could have played it a little better. Maybe faking a guilty result on a random target would have given more credence to the spoof theory and bought him some more time. But I think any story would have fallen apart in the end. Game mechanics dictated that the likeliest placement of scum was always going to be one in each group.

(I'm starting to ramble, indulge me.)

From my experience, there are a few basic ways to play the true third party role:

1. Brute force. Make little to no connections, act like a regular townie to everybody, do your actions at night and hope you're the last person standing. Generally not very effective.

2. Deception. Tell your faction of choice that you're aligned with them. Probably easier to pull off with town as the mafia are inherently suspicious about this sort of thing, especially if adding an extra weapon doesn't make sense from a balance perspective. Still need a damn good endgame to prevent your story from falling apart at the close though. Best (only?) example of this is TinCow's metagame-breaking turn as Hades in Netherworld I, and he had more "hard power" abilities. I think this is the route Monty wanted to take.

3. Play both sides. This one's dependent on a lot of factors. Your own abilities, a good read of how the game is progressing, etc. If you don't make the exact right moves at the exact right times, then you upset the balance you're so desperately trying to keep, possibly irreversibly.

To sum up, it's far more likely that the third party role ends up working with the town than the mafia. Because of this, the mafia are more likely to suffer, and there needs to be compensation for this in place from a balance perspective. This usually comes in the form of kills or a cult recruitment mechanic. At the end of the day you had a really interesting idea, but I think you came to the conclusion yourself that this compensation wasn't really present this time.

Once again, thanks for the game, I had a lot of fun. :bow:

[Askthepizzaguy]

I always factor things like non-neutral third parties (serial killers, cults, opposing mafia), anyone who cannot win with the mafia, as counting against the mafia's strength.

Only neutrals with no killing power really add to the mafia's strength. Every other kind of role is dangerous to the mafiosi. Unless I'm overlooking something.

If they are not town-aligned, I consider them to be even more dangerous to the mafia than, say, a town vigilante, if they can kill.

The reason being, a town vigilante doesn't want to shoot someone who they believe is a townie. So if a mafioso is capable of pulling off a deception worthy of fooling the town into thinking they're clear, the town vigilante may even leave them alone.

Not so with a serial killer type. You fool everyone into thinking you're town, and the SK will shoot you anyway, often as a priority, because then you're someone that won't be lynched. Now you have to worry about looking too townie, as well as too scummy.

That is the true danger of non-town roles which can't win with the mafia. It doesn't matter who you fool, you won't be fooling this person into thinking you're on their team, because they have no team, or know you're not on it. Whereas townies can't say that for sure.

Adding a serial killer or other anti-mafia third party to the game means you must always improve the mafia's balancing as compensation, since they're enduring a double threat of town and third party. The mafia and the serial killer, or opposing mafia, are almost always more dangerous to one another than the town is, unless the town is insanely overpowered, and in such an example, the mafia would be under about three times as much threat than a typical game.

I don't mind the occasional multi-faction game, but it's a problem imo that I can have Montmorency openly admit to me and several townies that he is not on my team and that he might even have win conditions that are opposed to my own, and my reaction is to then trust him more than I would trust a villager that I thought was a lock villager, and that's AFTER being paranoid about him and wanting him dead for safety reasons early on.

I can safely assume the mafia will kill him, or he will stick out like a sore thumb at final three and be the lynchee.

I shouldn't be able to make such a powerfully effective assumption when the guy's role is technically opposed to my own. I should fear his betrayal, but once he's known to the mafia and causing them deaths, he pretty much always loses the game, and, almost always helps town win the game.

He's third party almost in name only in these circumstances. He's anti-town-ish but he still added immensely to town's strength here. And even if it weren't Montmorency, who is known to play pro-town even when he's a SK or third party, let's say it were Sasaki Kojiro himself, you'd still end up thinking that the third party person adds to the town's strength.

Well, maybe... I mean Sasaki might just play it pro-scum because that's how he rolled. But almost any other player I'd imagine would end up helping town win unless they sat down, shut up about their role, and tried to win it the brute force way, or save their reveal until endgame where they made one big play or ploy to win it all.

I feel a non-neutral third party should be a danger to all opposing factions, more or less equally, for it to really be a third party kind of feel to the role. The best example I could think of for that was a game Beskar hosted where one of the persons got transformed into a third party alien with no ability to control who they damaged... I think it was called "Parasite".

I had been playing pro-town the whole time, as I typically do when neutral (really! With only one major exception I can think of... :wink:) but when my transformation was triggered, I could not stop myself from killing townies at my location. I still tried to survive and help the town but I was truly dangerous to them.

That is probably the best example I can think of, of a third party actually being really dangerous to the town. A serial killer who shoots more or less randomly or is really bad at locating mafia will be a problem for town, but since the mafia are so dangerous to serial killers it just makes more sense for the SK to try to eliminate them.

These are all observations. Conclusions, solutions, I don't know if I have them. A third party role needs to be very carefully constructed for their addition to the game not to simply be a mostly pro-town benefit. I really would weigh a town vigilante as only slightly more pro-town for the town than a straight up serial killer would be, who intends to defeat the town. They (Serial killers) really only go after the core townies if the town has an entrenched and trusted town network and is thus a greater threat to the SK than the unknown mafia would be.

Unless people get creative with their approaches. Or mix things up just to be different, I think this is how it always will be.

I would play with the mafia against the town if they were an entrenched network, because then it is a more balanced and more likely to succeed strategy imo, but rare is the circumstance where town is that "in the know" that they have such a core of cleared persons to make them more of a threat to the SK than the mafia themselves, and vice-versa.

One serial killer can eventually pick off most of your team and they don't care how townie you look. There is no greater danger to the mafia than that. I'd rather take my chances with a town detective that I know probably scanned me guilty N1. At least then I can play some head games.

[GeneralHankerchief]

I've been essentially the same third-party role twice in khaan's games: I could possess any person at night and dictate their night action, to various degrees of success. The first time I was an anomaly and actually aligned with the mafia. This was a miscalculation on my part as the town got utterly, utterly crushed, but I simply didn't have enough resources at my disposal to overcome the mafia's power.

The second time, I tried to finesse it and made a cover role, ostensibly working with the town but using my fabricated role to be more of a true SK. Things were going well and I made it to the endgame with a more or less ideal numbers distribution, but I ended up getting lynched through too many plain old scumtells in the thread.

These roles are fun, but they're super-challenging. And that goes for both the player trying to win and a host trying to properly balance things.