Cosa Nuova II: The Cult of the Cosa Nuova [Concluded]

[Andres]

Aaaaa...h, Sigurd converted in night 8. How unfortunate... And to think I was sooo suspicious about HughTower. Sigurd, if you hadn't been converted night 8, would you have voted HughTower instead of Caius?

Anyway, great game Kommodus. Thanks for hosting this one :bow:

And congratulations to the Cosa Nuova :bow: Close one which probably makes the victory the more satisfactory (and the defeat more or less acceptable :grin:) :bow:

[RoadKill]

Oh ya I just HAD to trip and fall off a cliff and die....

[seireikhaan]

Great game, Kommodus. It was truly an enjoyable first mafia experience. Of course the fact that I won does help.:laugh4:

EDIT: BTW, guys, what gave me away?

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Great game, Kommodus. It was truly an enjoyable first mafia experience. Of course the fact that I won does help.:laugh4:

EDIT: BTW, guys, what gave me away?

Just general attitude.


Don't believe you guys didn't lynch twilightblade and went for caius.

[RoadKill]

Exactly. No body believed me when I almost proved that caius was innocent.

[TevashSzat]

Wow, we did so badly in the beginning, 5 days and not 1 mafia lynch. I must say, well played mafia

[Stig]

5 days and not 1 mafia lynch.
Oh, that's pretty normal, we won Mafia VI on the last day

[Kommodus]

Great game, Kommodus. Very nice, and very enjoyable. Should we expect a write-up, soon?

Thanks! :bow:

Yes, the commentary should be up in a couple of days. Believe me, a lot of hidden things will be revealed! :yes:

For now, I would like to congratulate the Cosa Nuova for their victory! They played a very commendable game. :applause: :applause: :applause:

Also, the townspeople deserve a lot of credit for coming back from a nearly insurmountable deficit after the first five rounds to make it a close game after all. They had quite a tough challenge in this game, all things considered. The late conversion of Sigurd proved to be decisive; if not for that I think they might have won.

I'm glad you all enjoyed it! Now I think I'm going to look around for a Cinco de Mayo festival...

:holiday:

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Vote:greaterkhaan

Bandwagon vote using others reasoning. His response to my questions is very accomodating, but I'm inclined to see that as a mafia tell rather than a town tell.

Vote:greaterkhaan

unvote,Vote:Seamus

big Fos:Seamus

lol. You could have at least pretended to be innocent.

if there was a conversion it was almost certainly Sigurd as he has the power role and would be the prime target

Lynch twilightblade

Posting this in the hope that next game you people listen to me instead of trying to get my lynched from the get go. I shouldn't have goofed around but I was under the impression that the detective had an innocent on me.

I would say Andres was the town MVP this game.

[seireikhaan]

Lol. Yup, Sasaki, you had us nailed down pretty good. However, because of your goofing off, and evasiveness for such a long time, you yourself provided a nice, comfy shield to hide behind for a while. Ironic, no?

[Caius]

Gah!Gah!Gah!

Good game, dirty scum.I knew Sigurd was mafia, I can felt that

[pevergreen]

I told everyone to lynch TB, but noo :laugh4:

Mob lynches are not easy to control.

[Csargo]

I said to lynch khaan and Hugh. Seamus was up there on the suspect list but CF was just too suspicious.

[Kommodus]

Yes, all of the mafiosi were identified at some point by at least one person. This game is a good example of that simply not being enough.

For example, Seamus Fermanagh was pegged very early (in the very first round) by GeneralHankerchief, who sent me a PM indicating his suspicions. However, he abandoned the game and never even posted his thoughts.

Also, greaterkhaan made a few early mistakes and was suspected by players such as Ichigo and Sasaki; however, they weren't able to convince the town, and he was allowed to survive much longer than he should have.

Andres also did an excellent job in the later rounds - I remember a post in which he named all of the remaining mafiosi. It was almost enough to win for the town.

BTW, if TwilightBlade had been lynched in the final round, the game would have ended at the same time and in the same way. The writeup would've been a bit different, I suppose.

[sapi]

So I maintain that we were right not to lynch a convert....we just got the target wrong :laugh4:

[Sasaki Kojiro]

The final round was a farce essentially, we needed to stop a kill and with three mafia alive and no roleblocker we had no way of doing that.

[sapi]

No, we had a chance.

There was one mafia alive, and if we'd lynched him we would have won...

[Sigurd]

No, we had a chance.

There was one mafia alive, and if we'd lynched him we would have won...
Too bad Caius dug his own grave :beam:

[sapi]

Yes, I was just thinking that ~:(

Wouldn't have been too bad an idea, now I think about it, for you to get yourself lynched (that is, if Caius wasn't being so obliging) :grin2:

[pevergreen]

Ah well, at least it would have made no difference to lynch TB. He tried to suicide, but Kommo wouldnt let him :laugh4:

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Surgeon General's warning -- mafia games can be bad for your health! :devilish:

This was fun, and a big thanks to Kommodus. My record of not surviving as anything less than a god is still intact.:smartass:

Here's the diary as it went.

Cosa Nuova II – Nadir of the Nanites

Got tapped by Kommodus to be one of the CN team for this set-to. HughTower and Greaterkhaan were selected as the other members of the troika.

Preparations were choppy, as I had little or no time to prepare before what I thought was the initial deadline for PMs. Ooops – real life gets in the way. Spring Break week does NOT mean the same thing for parents as for students.

Night One

The extension helped, as it allowed us to touch base with a few things. Hugh persisted in his desire to target Axe – fine by me – and khaan was set to target GeneralHankerchief to see if we’d get lucky and pick up a powerful recruit early on. Khaan ended up with commo trouble during the last stretch, so I jumped in and executed an attack on his target.

A few minutes of research – neat stuff about the optic nerve – and I had what I needed to set Kommodus up for the write-up. He’s quite talented, and I simply send him an outline of the steps of my idea and then let him craft it to fit his overall narrative.

Results of Night One = 0 recruits. Drats. On the positive side, the General is a busy gamer, so his early death might see him off into other gaming directions and keep him from being a powerful hunter in this one – though this is by no means certain.

Day One

Sigurd’s comments about mis-trusting attack survivors don’t spell out a lot of hope for any new recruits – though it’s also likely to get any “doctor” saves killed as well, so I’ll take the salt with the sugar.

The pace of votes and commentary aren’t hopeful for a mafia win, of course, but I’m hoping that my eventual lynching (price of being a known player) will take long enough, and be distracting enough, that ‘khaan and or Hugh get by. I’ve chatted with them both to see if we can highlight this effect for our advantage.

This time around, it would be a joy if Sasaki buys it – leaving just that hint of doubt to his participation in the mind of the town – but neither Hugh nor I had a good reason to withdraw our vote from ‘luster and bring about his early lynching. Oh well, we’ll see what comes of the tie.

Okay, Stig broke the tie and sent Warluster to the chopping block. Sasaki is capable of annoying more people, but Warluster – as Kommodus’ write-up suggests – ended up paying the price for hit-or-miss participation in previous games. Of course, for the CN, Sasaki’s lynch would have been more valuable, but one fewer is still one fewer.


Night Two

We had several tentative targets including Tran, Redce, and Ichigo (recruit!), but in the end we decided on a mix similar to the last go-around. ‘khaan will take out Redce with his Black Widow whilst my surgeon will attempt to recruit Crazed Rabbit. Ichigo draws more fire than Rabbit, as my partners noted, so we felt we could let him risk lynching more readily. Rabbit, on the other hand, has his “I don’t lie rep” going strong. Therefore, if murdered, he gains no Extra credibility – if converted, we pick up a good planner/attacker (and we’ll decide how much he’s allowed to know). I really was impressed with Rabbit’s efforts during Capo – he was the “operations director” for the Barzinis and did quite well.

Well the write up for ‘khaan’s kill was splendid – a venatrix no less! I am impressed with Kommo’s writing at all points. Neither target lived, but the odds favor that. Sorry to lose Rabbit – but omelettes and eggs as they say.

Day Two

Tran just got hammered in slow motion. I took the opportunity to snipe hard at Caius – his vote record lets me hit reasonably hard – though nobody took the bait. A lot of vote shifting this time leads me to think that no solid leads exist in our hunters’ minds. They’re casting about looking to provoke a guilty response. This is about normal for this time frame. If a detective is hunting, he hasn’t hit on anything yet.

Night Three

We’re discussing who to kill, and Disco comes up. I’ll suggest Kage – one vote to “stay alive” is the way I’d try to be a detective if I had it to do again. We’ll see who the final targets shape out to be.

Disco is taken out as is Kage – with no recruits. It is only after his death is posted that I remember the “curse.” I’m not really superstitious (except as required of a baseball traditionalist) so I really don’t think about it. We’ll be discussing whether to kill two or one on night 4 –is confusion worth more than reduced #s?


Day Three

Voting kicked off at a steady pace, but kicked off in the wrong direction. Ichigo is picking up on good – if somewhat thin – evidence and has targeted ‘khaan. He’s exactly right, of course, as to the inconsistencies. Fortunately for us, Destro fired back at Ichigo (some substance, but as we know he’s not CN) and then Andres jumped on Sasaki based on Sasaki’s earlier “you’ll see I’m innocent” comment. If Sasaki is the detective and got one of us round 1, we may see a reveal that get’s that one and ‘khaan killed, but if we’re lucky, Sasaki will take the chop and ‘khaan will slide under the radar for a few rounds.

Things slogged along for a while, and then rapidly shifted against Xdeath towards the close. Sasaki took the opportunity to break the tie and keep himself alive and his role (if any?) intact. Can’t say I blame him.

Night Four

A bit of confusion here – we’d chosen targets but my link to the org went away until after I was asleep. Got the PM in late – not sure if Kommo will count it. Plan – after a good deal of targeting discussion – was to take two: Arach and T’blade. Arach seems to be swinging to the Sasaki/Ichigo camp and T’blades round 3! No lynch vote just seems to scream “I’m preserving my role.” Maybe not, but it got him targeted.

If Kommo only counts one kill, we still get the confusion benefit. Either way, it should be a useful night.

Wow! We converted T’blade rather than killing him. Early sentiment seems to be to use him without giving out our identities. I’m gonna advocate not using him as a sacrificial lamb though – 4 gives us a much higher chance to win early (8 left = CN victory barring a deadman vote).

Ichigo’s suicide seems unusual. At Kommo’s request (subsequent to a discussion with HughT) he’s being quiet.


Day Four

Voting starts out with pressure votes – I add one for Xehh just to get a vote in early before bandwagon threats start up. Blade and Sasaki were the popular wagoneers after the early going.

Discussion went back and forth for a while, with ‘blade finally responding to the pressure (and under directions to do so and to vote) and starting turning on Xehh. As time ran out, Sasaki ended up with the plurality and got the chop. This was useful as it was the best way to maintain the “taint” on his claims and analysis.

Night Five

We had a lot of discussion on this, finally narrowing our kills to Pev and to Sapi or Frenzy as choice number two. ‘khaan was facing some kind of timezone and/or tech issue, so I ended up sending in kill orders on Frenzy. Blade was tasked with killing pevergreen.

Pevergreen attempt was intercepted and stopped – bad joss on us.

Frenzy died during the experiments – oh well.

Xehh was killed by a vigilante – talk about your two for one deals! The presence of a vigilante is problematic for the CN – allowing the town to get two of us in one day/night sequence if they get their act together, but tonight’s result was nothing but gravy.

Day Five:

Wow. I’ve never really tried a fake reveal before, but with the pressure building I took some of the information that HughT had developed and embellished it and fired for effect. This won’t save me in the long run – my not being targeted will kill me eventually – but I think I’ve staved off the wolves for another whole round with my teammates help. Good on us!

I – the surgeon – couldn’t resist my quip to Sasaki about being a “bad doctor.” My humor will get me mafia killed some day….but it was fun to write.

I would really have preferred to get Caius lynched over Dutch, because Dutch seems to be a) just a bit more tenacious as an investigator and b) more prone to draw suspicion to himself with his vote/semi-lurk style. This latter made him today’s target instead of Caius. Hope it doesn’t mean we can’t get both lynched.

Night Six:

A fair amount of target discussion here. Boiled down to sending me (presumed innocent and with an excuse to be out of the hut) after Sapi and ‘blade after Stig. T’blade’s attack was blocked. This puts us two kills short and puts the town back in the lead. Poo-rats.

Day Six:

Started out as a pressure session on RK and GK, but the pendulum of analysis swung heavily against my partner. He’d twigged too many folks a notch early on, thus getting himself noticed a bit. Add his non-lurking status and the narrowing field of the late game and he got himself FOS’d. Other than a few early mis-steps, I think he’s played excellently. I am sad to see him be the first to go…I really thought it’d be me. GK’s lynch is a virtual lock as I write this.

Latter part of the discussion gives us hope for hammering Caius instead of Hugh – would be crucial numbers-wise. Give us two nights with 3 kills and Caius instead of Hugh and we might get back into this. Unfortunately, ATC and Siggy are pretty well covering the small field now and the bits of info are letting them target their lynches all too well.


Night Seven:

Rats! Only one kill again! That it was Andres – agent Bayinga I’m guessing – is good, but not getting two really puts us in a bind with Hugh. Siggy is camped on T’blade and Pevergreen is supposedly booby-trapped. Apparently Andres protected Stig yet again. Frustrating.

Day Seven:

First vote was to Sigurd but boy was he ready with a defense. Doubt I could put enough holes in that to work. Unfortunately, Andres analysis is on target and leaves Caius and Hugh. I have a sick feeling they’re gonna choose Hugh. Though we’ll try to get Caius offed. If Hugh goes, we’ll be down to one kill and one kill only as Siggy will just continue to sit on Blade. This gives them lots of chances to rethink and whack me – and it looks as though I’ll be the only original left. Not fair really, it was Hugh’s research that gave me the alibi.

Okay, it got a lot fairer as I became the primary target. Since I’m guilty, I have to put it down to my slip-ups. I never thought the fake reveal would fly as well as it did, and I guess I should be thankful that they tumbled on the weaknesses and discrepancies only after a couple of rounds.

My team tried to arrange a last minute switch to Caius, but T’blade was off line (and playing for the town?) and Hugh wasn’t enough. I got the lynch on a well played strategic “pocket” vote used by the town to confirm Hugh’s status – at least that is my supposition.

That makes two of us CN’s dead and Hugh likely to follow immediately. I suspect this one is over.

Night Eight.

Hugh has an attack plan in place, but I suspect we need at least one – and more likely two – converts to actually get a win at this point. Since I suspect that Siggy will continue to sit on T’blade, I suspect that we’ll get one kill, one block and a quick death for Hugh.

As I write this, discussion seems to be assessing between Hugh and Caius, but the real movers and shakers in this – Andres and Pev – are just, I think, biding time and waiting for the casualty reports. Once the kills are up, I think we’ll see a rapid series of Hugh votes and a quick finish – despite the discussion.

Wow, what a lucky break. A conversion kicked in when that, and only that, was likely to give us a win. Sigurd should be a fun one to play with as well. T’blade will have to be used at arm’s length – pever’ has a connection with him – but Siggy should play along nicely. Killing stig was a good help too.

Day Eight.

Incredibly, the discussion quickly swung back to Caius – along with some votes – and the votes stalled there with Caius on the blocks. Apparently, there is still enough doubt for the town to consider Caius as the greater threat than Hugh. There are those with second thoughts about me even! Even Andres, who has no doubt about me, has correctly pegged me as the type to start a game-long attack on a fellow Mafioso just to build a good case for the endgame – and he’s right. I think I even mentioned it in discussion at one point. It’s not a tactic I chose here – the conversion thing seemed more influential and I didn’t play it that way – but my accidental focus on Caius may pay some dividend. Of course, Andres and Pev could still be woolin’ us for a late Tuesday vote to hammer Hugh…but we shall see.

If they don’t lynch Blade, Hugh, or Siggy, it’s probably our win as one of the two attacks will kill or convert. If they lynch Blade or Siggy, then we need both attacks to work in order to keep it at 2-2. If they get Hugh, of course, they win. We shall see.

Well, well. Caius takes the chop – best thing that could have happened for the CN. This will leave it at Horus, pevergreen, Roadkill and the CN. Needless to say, with two kill/convert attempts locked in, the chances that the remaining folks can completely protect one another in a round robin is almost nil. This should mean a victory for us.


Summary:

This was a wonderful game and, as usual, well written and managed by Kommodus. His level of consistency and equitability is one we should all strive to attain when hosting our own games. I enjoy most of the Gameroom hosts, of course, but as Kommo’s original CN was my first game, I will always be fond of his.

This game started well for the mafia, as do most, but I get suspect – we’ll see in the GM’s write-up – that the mafia had gotten a bit lucky (and/or players were getting Wogged with roles) and this occasioned the envelopes. With those envelopes, however, the game reversed quickly and information was assembled that quickly killed prime CN suspects. GK was taken down and I – though I staved it off with my “reveal” for a while – didn’t last too long when the real pressure came down.

At this point, I started to think that this would end (as do most mafia efforts) with the initial success but rapid destruction of the mafia as the field narrowed in the late mid-game and end-game.

This time, there were still doubts. Even after lynching me, some expressed concern that I had been innocent after all. Key for us, was that Hugh had created enough of a sense of normalcy to be cut slack for a long while, and Caius played into this with his altered posting style and got picked in the 50/50 choice between the 2. With tough defenses by myself and G’khaan (even though these ultimately failed we did buy measurable time after initially becoming FOS) it allowed us to stay alive just long enough to get a little luck with the second conversion.

I think the town made a mistake not lynching T’blade. If you are unsure of your targets and see yourself as only 50/50 between a choice of two suspects, why not take out the known enemy? Even if he isn’t central to town victory, his presence adds numbers to the mafia which they CAN use for their victory. Sasaki was correct when he called for ‘blade’s lynching – it would have slowed the CN down. The last night would have been 4-2 going in, and only a double kill night would have put the mafia in control. Another 1 and 1 would yield a 3-2 townie advantage and VERY few suspects among whom Hugh might have “hidden.”

Thanks all, and I look forward to the next stint of gameroom mafia.

I'm looking forward to the other write-ups. Hopefully Hugh will include the link to our planning session area so that you folks can enjoy our planning and worrying as much as we did.

Thanks all!

[Caius]

Meh, I should suicided.

Note for CF:Suicide in the last round of mafia.

[pevergreen]

:laugh4:

That doesnt help us.

I was influential? The only thing i did was (i hope) goad you into attacking me once.

[sapi]

Good writeup Seamus :bow:

[mightilyoats]

I did not play (so sorry for posting here, I don't know if it is against the rules), but I just want to say, gripping stuff guys. Well done mafia! And nice writing Kommodus!

Jeez, I am glad this is over. This game kept me out of my work since it started...

[Kommodus]

The Commentary of the Cosa Nuova


The commentary on the game by the host follows. It’s quite long, but should reveal a lot of interesting tidbits.



Game Setup

I had several goals for this game, including the following:


A game in which the townspeople had to use their own wits to identify the mafia instead of relying on information from pro-town roles. The pro-town roles would have the potential to slow down the mafia but not stop them. Therefore, I decided there would be no detectives in this game.
A game in which everyone was forced to use their own eloquence to convince others. To this end, quoting of my private messages would not be allowed. Paraphrasing or describing the contents of my messages would be admitted, but no one would be able to drop a quote in the thread and use its style as proof.
A game which was played in-thread, with minimal private networking. This is more in the spirit of the original game of mafia, and it prevents the town from building networks of trusted people. I simply felt that this would be fairer.
The Cosa Nuova Operatives

The players selected as Cosa Nuova were HughTower, Seamus Fermanagh, and greaterkhaan. This was a strong cast: HughTower and Seamus are both experienced and very intelligent players. Joining them for his first game was greaterkhaan.

The CN would have the ability to “convert” a few additional players to their side, but they had the freedom to divulge as much or as little information to their converts as they wished. I used myself as the conduit for this anonymous communication – converts could pass messages to the original CN in the same manner.

Although the town did not need to lynch converts to win (only the three original members), the CN had a lot of power. The town would need to play a good game in order to win.

The Pro-Town Roles

Agent Bayingana

Killfr3nzy was selected for what I hoped would be the most pivotal pro-town role. Everyone expected the MI-6 agent to be an investigative role; however, they were mistaken. I repeat: Agent Bayingana was not an investigative role.

He had essentially two powers, and was able to use both each night:


Vaccination: Equivalent of a doctor. He could vaccinate a single player, protecting them from the nanite attack for a single night.
Interrogation: This was not an investigation, but rather a role-blocking ability. He could detain a player for a night, preventing them from carrying out a night action. It actually did have limited investigative value: it would identify pro-town roles and converted CN operatives. I originally decided that the CN operatives would be too well-trained to crack, but before the end of the first night decided to give it a 50% chance of identifying them as well.
In addition, I decided to inform people when they were interrogated. I just wanted to see what would happen; I didn’t know what effect (if any) it would have on the game.

Killfr3nzy was a new player, and I wasn’t sure how well he would handle this role.

The Watchmen

There were two watchmen: BlackAxe3001 and sapi. They knew each other from the beginning. Their powers gave each of them the ability to watch a player’s home during the night; if that player was attacked, they would learn the identities of the attacker. They would not find out if the player they watched had carried out a night action.

I felt that watchmen were a little stronger than doctors, as they had the ability to identify the CN operatives, even though they couldn’t stop attacks.

The Vigilate

Warmaster Horus was selected as the vigilante. This role was rather weak, as he was initially working alone. He would have only a single bullet enabling him to kill a player at night – hopefully a Mafioso. I planned to put him in touch with the watchmen later in the game, which I eventually did.

This made a total of four pro-town roles. I admit they were not particularly strong, and were hampered by the inability to network with each other and other townspeople (as everyone was explicitly forbidden from revealing privately). The chief pro-town role in this game, of course, would be the civilian – the average man or woman with no tool but his or her mind.

The Strong-Minded Villagers

As I promised, the strong-minded villagers constituted only a small minority of the town. I felt that the Cosa Nuova could basically use converts as “cannon fodder” – by sending converted players to do their dirty work, they would avoid the danger of their original members being blocked or spotted.

The strong-minded villagers were:

Sigurd Fafnesbane
Myrddraal
Xehh II
Ichigo
TwilightBlade


Pre-Game

After I announced that the roles had been selected and the first night phase had begun, there was a surprisingly lively period of discussion. The first person to successfully identify a Mafioso was Ichigo, who called out Seamus Fermanagh on a slightly suspicious post. However, all that was really happening was random suspicion and accusations, and of course none of this led to anything more.

The main theme seemed to be newbies getting questioned for acting like newbies. The general response to this was “it could be just a front for a clever Mafioso.” My advice would be this: don’t read too much into newbie-ish behavior. This normally leads the town astray.

There was a delay in writing up the kills. I apologize for this; I simply hoped to give everyone with a role a chance to settle in – and also give the Cosa Nuova time to communicate and plan their strategy. In the end the Cosa Nuova made good use of the extra time, getting in their second kill just before the deadline.


Night 1

BlackAxe3001 watches Ichigo
Killfr3nzy vaccinates pevergreen and interrogates Sasaki Kojiro
sapi watches pevergreen
HughTower attacks BlackAxe3001
Seamus Fermanagh attacks GeneralHankerchief

As noted earlier, I sent Killfr3nzy a PM slightly revising his powers, giving his interrogation ability a 50% chance of uncovering one of the original CN operatives. Unsurprisingly, he went straight for Sasaki Kojiro.

Note that I upgraded Killfr3nzy because I was already becoming a little concerned that the Cosa Nuova were slightly overpowered. I decided to wait and see how the first few rounds went, then make adjustments if necessary.

Of the Mafiosi, HughTower was the most detailed in his instructions, sending very well-written kills, already compiled in story form. I only made minor edits to these, usually to make them consistent with the rest of my write-up in grammar and punctuation. Here is HughTower’s first kill:




On the eastern outskirts of town, where the rutted dirt track meandered pointlessly through an ever-decreasing number of meagre & misshapen small-holdings, squatted one dwelling even more meaningless than the rest. Its rain-starved field boasted an indistinct line of a graying wilting maize, whose ears stooped lower by the day. An old dog, its brown coat thrown over its ribs like it belonged not to it, lay on the stoop by the door, one red-rimmed & jaundiced eye open & unseeing. This was the home of BlackAxe3001.

On days like these, they said you could 'cut' the air like cheese. It was made thicker yet by the bugs, snap-crackling energetically all around like the self-important officials who buzzed futilely around the ministries of Kigali. Behind the house, past the hole where the owner buried his night-earth, down a well-trod path lay the banks of a small stream, no more than a ditch filled with sad stagnant water. Here, the majority of the bugs, Africa's great levellers, the mosquitoes, began their lives, spawning relentlessly to fulfil some great unknown pre-determination.

On the far side of the stream, in the jungle's edge, was tethered an old black cow. She was a recent addition to the scene, having been placed there only two days before. You could only discern the beast's discomfort at withstanding the incessant onslaught of newly-hatched mosquitoes by observing the constant thrashing of her flanks by her ragged tail. Her tormentors found her unerringly straight from their hatching-ground, grateful for their first meal, settled round her relatively unprotected ears & nostrils & drank their fill.

As they finished, they dispersed in an infinite number of directions. A few found the hovel across the stream – even less of their number found their way in past a long-torn hole in the fly-screen. Those that made it were rewarded with the sight & smell of another meal ticket: BlackAxe3001, prone & paralytic as always at this time of the day, partial as he was to the dark malty sweet stout much-beloved by the African working man. His breath rattled through his chest, encountering & bringing with it pockets of phlegm, as he slept away his pain.

Through the night the mosquitoes came & found him, and for each meal they took from him, they left something behind, like some macabre tip from the very worst of diners. They knew not what they did, & nor did they care, but, by the morning, they found that the man's blood no longer ran as they required, & they moved on as quickly as they arrived.

Later that day, a slight angular & cowled figure padded silently through the jungle to where the old cow stood, unhitched her from her post, turned on his heels, & disappeared back through the greenery.



Seamus Fermanagh gave a reasonable amount of detail in his instructions, but left the writing to me. His first-round instructions were characteristic of this:




I think Khaan intended to whack General Hanky by means of a black widow injecting the nanites.

So change my kill order to General Hanky, though my suggested method would be:

1. Knocked out with a soporific

2. Awakens to find self stapped to a table, eyes held open by those weird clamps from "Clockwork Orange"

3. Commentary about the optic nerve being unusual in that it is more like brain tissue then nerve tissue, providing the nanites with a direct access unfettered by nerve response.

4. Drops of saline water containing the nanites are dropped gently on both eyes.

If it fails, you can narrate him gouging out his own eyes to stop the agony just before the grand mal siezure/stroke takes him out.

If it succeeds, let me know. I definitely want Herr General working for me.



The Cosa Nuova’s early strategy centered on trying to convert good players – those trusted by the people and adept at detective work. To this end, GeneralHankerchief was attacked – of course, he didn’t survive. I wondered if they would target players such as Sigurd Fafnesbane and Myrddraal, both strong-minded villagers (although Myrddraal was away).

In addition, the death of BlackAxe3001 was a blow to the town, as they had one fewer watchman. I didn’t mourn this loss, however, as it became apparent that BlackAxe3001 and revealed the fact that he had a role in the chatroom. It appeared he didn’t say what his role was, but he came as close to violating the rule as possible without explicitly breaking it. This would become a recurring theme in the game, and generally speaking, there was nothing I could do about it.


Day 1

GeneralHankerchief almost immediately PM’d me telling me he was suspicious of Seamus Fermanagh:



Ouchies. I have an awful record of survival in your games.

Anyway, my suspicions are of Seamus. Something just doesn't seem right with him. I'm not going to say anything in the thread until I collect more data though.

Go town!

GH


In the end he never posted his suspicions in the thread, and this potential boon to the town fizzled.

The pre-lynch debate was typical of first-round randomness. Most of it focused on whether or not bandwagons were good – Sasaki Kojiro claiming they were, most others disagreeing. Naturally this garnered a lot of suspicion for Sasaki; however, ultimately the Warluster bandwagon was stronger and he was lynched.

Prior to being lynched, Warluster sent me a frustrated PM indicating he wished to commit suicide. However, as I stated in the original rules this was not be allowed. He was getting a lot of votes, and the justice system needed to run its course uninterrupted. However, Omanes Alexandropolitis the Idiot also requested suicide. I agreed to his request but put it off for a couple rounds (simple laziness on my part).

In an ominous sign, several villagers didn’t participate at all – most of the discussion was coming from a small number of players. I hoped these players would jump in soon, as a lot of mod-kills would unbalance the game in favor of the Cosa Nuova.

Lynched: Warluster


Night 2

Seamus Fermanagh attacks Crazed Rabbit
greaterkhaan attacks rdece.jabolko
Killfr3nzy interrogates Ichigo and vaccinates Sasaki Kojiro
sapi watches no one

I noticed that Killfr3nzy was focusing his attention on the most high-profile players. I can’t necessarily fault him for this, being new and inexperienced, but I realized he would never get anywhere with this approach. As a side-note, I sent him his results a bit late this round.

I waited a long time for sapi to send in his instructions, but he missed the deadline by a large margin. He told me he would have watched Ichigo.

The Cosa Nuova, meanwhile, continued to try to win converts among the good players – this time, Crazed Rabbit, the notorious truth-teller, was the target. Several players picked up on this.

Rgarding the death of rdece.jabolko: it appeared that many people found it quite compelling. The idea of using a prostitute was, in fact, greaterkhaan’s idea. Here is the PM he sent me:




My target is rdeče.jabolko.

The plan goes something like this:
1) Kidnap attractive prostitute. 2) Inject prostitute with solution. 3) If prostitute dies, repeat steps 1-2 until one survives and is converted. 4) When an able prostitute is converted, send said prostitute to his home to seduce him. 5) Said prostitute has sex with him, therebye infecting him with solution.

Obviously this would be heavily censored and I don't expect much detail regarding the sex scene, just enough to get the message accross. The idea is to pass the nanites along like one would pass along herpes or AIDS. Oh, and I was thinking our little "black widow" as she's now called, would use some story like this.

"Oh, my husband General Handkerchief just recently died and I have no where to go. I can't continue to pay for our home. Would you please give me shelter and comfort for the night?"

Or at least something along those lines. Oh, and the "black widow" idea has no racial connotations, I was associating her with the fact that she's playing the part of a widow and she's deadly, just like the black widow spider.



As you can see, then, the writing was mine. I have to say, it was one of the more interesting kills to write. I also noted that Seamus Fermanagh, the “surgeon” killer, was sending good instructions, showing more medical knowledge than I realized he had. I had a lot of fun with the “evil mastermind” theme.


Day 2

AndresTheCunning and Xehh II both informed me they would be away for a period of time. This wasn’t a big deal, and they weren’t gone for long. However, discussion was light for a while; eventually it picked up, but the number of people responsible for most of it was still relatively small. Several were getting close to being mod-killed.

Ultimately it was Tran who was lynched. Having reviewed the arguments against him, I have to comment that they were quite poor. I was disappointed with the town – they would have to do better than this to have a chance.

Lynched: Tran


Night 3

sapi watches Myrddraal
Killfr3nzy interrogates pevergreen and vaccinates Ichigo
greaterkhaan attacks discovery1
HughTower attacks Kagemusha

Killfr3nzy continued to focus on the high-profile targets. His strategy was getting the town nowhere. In addition, HughTower apparently decided it was time to tempt the “curse,” which by now is looking a little frayed around the edges. Kagemusha would pull out of the game after his death, justifying HughTower’s decision.

Greaterkhaan wanted to repeat his prostitute method on discovery1. However, not wanting to make my game sex-themed, I refused this request. In the end I wrote that kill entirely on my own.


Day 3

The discussion was rather strange this round. At first, Sasaki was drawing most of the votes. However, it eventually came out that he and Ichigo had been interrogated. Following this a large number of people, for some reason, decided to target Xdeathfire. I could identify no reason for this – Xdeathfire had barely said anything at all, and nothing that I could identify as suspicious.

Interestingly, Killfr3nzy (who had interrogated Sasaki and found nothing conclusive) supported lynching him. He was the only one who knew that the interrogation was a role-block and not truly an investigation.

There were a few people who wisely targeted greaterkhaan – most notably Ichigo, who I felt was generally on track in this game. However, they were not listened to. Instead, paranoia ruled the day, and most people focused their suspicion on high-profile players such as Sasaki and Ichigo.

Note: the mafia loves it when the town focuses on one or two high-profile targets. It really helps them slip through the cracks unnoticed.

Ichigo, meanwhile, informed me that he’d been contacted by someone claiming to be the “detective” but using an alternate account. I applaud Ichigo’s honesty in this. I realized Killfr3nzy was trying to circumvent my rules, much as doc_bean did in Sasaki’s game The Black Hand. This could not be allowed; however, I decided to be lenient and simply send him a warning. I would have done something to compensate the Cosa Nuova but they already had a big lead, with the town nowhere near the truth.

In the end Xdeathfire was lynched, another badly wasted execution. In addition, the first mod kills struck this round. Ignoramus, Motep, and Myrddraal hadn’t participated at all since signing up, and they were naturally on the receiving end. I also finally got around to writing up Omanes’ suicide, two rounds delayed.

I will also note that arguments were rather bitter this round, as some people insulted the intelligence of others. I tried to reflect this in the execution story. However, I failed to realize precisely how personal things were getting. Ichigo sent me a PM in which he requested to commit suicide, as he was frustrated with the path the game was taking.

Also, just before the next night phase, I put sapi and Warmaster Horus in touch with each other.

Lynched: Xdeathfire


Night 4

Killfr3nzy interrogates Andres and vaccinates Ichigo
sapi watches Sigurd Fafnesbane
Seamus Fermanagh attacks TwilightBlade
HughTower attacks CountArach

Since Ichigo was going to commit suicide, I gave Killfr3nzy a brief opportunity to change his vaccination target. However, he didn’t see my message in time and I was forced to post the single murder. TwilightBlade, being a strong-minded villager, survived Seamus’ attack and joined the Cosa Nuova.

The second death, of course, was Ichigo’s suicide. I put a small clue in his death scene that he had been on the right track – his final words “Why won’t they listen?” Although Ichigo’s innocence was now confirmed, no one picked up on this.

HughTower, realizing that Ichigo might have gained an advantage for the town by confirming his own innocence through suicide, sent me a request to stop Ichigo from posting in the thread any longer. I decided HughTower was right, and requested Ichigo to refrain from posting until the end of the game. Suicide will not be allowed to be a valid pro-town tactic in my games – if you want to kill yourself you had better be sure.

All in all, things were looking very bad for the town. I began to wonder if I should do something to give them a fighting chance.


Day 4

It was also at this stage that pevergreen sent me a PM indicating Killfr3nzy had revealed to him privately. The illegal behind-the-scenes networking was beginning to come out in the thread, as Sigurd Fafnesbane made a post indicating what he’d learned about Agent Bayingana’s abilities and activities. However, he still though that Agent Bayingana was a detective, which (as noted earlier) was not true.

As this was Killfr3nzy’s second offence, I notified him that his powers were revoked. However, he denied having revealed privately. I was puzzled by this – was it possible pevergreen was somehow mistaken? However, I could think of no plausible scenario that would let Killfr3nzy off the hook. If he hadn’t revealed privately, how would pevergreen have identified him?

The discussion accomplished nothing for the town, as they were unable to take their eyes off of Sasaki Kojiro, the eventual lynch choice. He had doomed himself by putting the lynch vote on Xdeathfire in the previous round. There were almost no Mafiosi on anyone’s suspect lists.

At this point I wanted to accomplish two things:


Give the townspeople a fighting chance.
Re-energize the game, as discussion had degenerated with little to talk about.
It was time for a Jeff Probst-style twist. The solution I settled on was to create a large number of new pro-town roles. As you know, these were the yellow envelopes received from mayor Rwigema. The roles handed out were as follows:

AndresTheCunning – Doctor

Standard protection role.
Killfr3nzy – Bodyguard

He could choose one player to protect at night. If that player was attacked, both Killfr3nzy and the attacker would be killed.
Pevergreen – Dirty Bomb

Passive role. If pevergreen was attacked at night, the attacker would be killed along with him.
Sigurd Fafnesbane – Roleblocker

Standard role-blocking role.
Stig – Prostitute/Watchman

The powers I gave Stig are normally associated with a role called “prostitute”; however, I didn’t want to use that term. He could watch someone’s house and determine whether or not they performed a night action. Therefore, although he was called a watchman, his powers differed from those of Stig and BlackAxe3001.
Killfr3nzy received a new role after all. It just so happened to be somewhat consistent with his earlier identity as Agent Bayingana.

As a side note, I didn’t give any envelopes to the Cosa Nuova, as you can see. However, I allowed you guys to think that I might have, since it wouldn’t do to spontaneously declare five people innocent – though, of course, the CN might have falsely claimed to have received an envelope.

Lynched: Sasaki Kojiro


Night 5

Stig watches Seamus Fermanagh
Sigurd Fafnesbane blocks HughTower
AndresTheCunning protects pevergreen
sapi watches Caius Flaminius
Warmaster Horus kills Xehh II
TwilightBlade was used to attack pevergreen
Seamus Fermanagh attacks Killfr3nzy

There was a lot of night activity this round as the envelopes took effect. The Cosa Nuova originally planned to have greaterkhaan attack Killfr3nzy, but he didn’t get his instructions in on time and so their backup plan went into effect. As a result, Seamus Fermanagh carried out the attack and Stig observed he was away from home.

Warmaster Horus, having consulted with sapi, decided to take out Xehh II. In his PM, he told me he hoped he wasn’t making a big mistake and included the Latin phrase Alea Jacta Est (the die is cast). I included this phrase in the kill write-up and made it clear that it was done by someone other than the Cosa Nuova. In doing this, WH took out the second-to-last available strong-minded villager; so it was a mistake, but perhaps not a huge one. Sigurd was the last remaining convertible player.

Pevergreen, the “dirty bomb,” was attacked, but AndresTheCunning’s doctor ability superseded pevergreen’s ability and the attack was blocked. Also, the CN got some attention. Sigurd blocked HughTower, but this made no difference as HughTower was idle for the night.

The CN were using TwilightBlade as I expected, but keeping him in the dark. I suppose they didn’t want to risk the danger that he might inadvertently give away information.

Finally, Killfr3nzy failed to get his instructions in on time, and his bodyguard role died with him. I just wanted you to know that he wasn’t killed as punishment for rule violations – he really was murdered. I think I made it fairly clear in his kill description that he had been Agent Bayingana – how else would he have known so much about the Cosa Nuova’s plan? This probably made no difference, as it had already been talked about in the thread. I figured this made little difference, as the CN still had a massive lead. Anyway, the rock messages stopped. There had only been one that contained a clue – the one I used to announce that the first three lynched players were innocent.


Day 5

I felt the town desperately needed to lynch a Mafioso this round to have a fighting chance. If they pooled their information this time, they’d have a good shot at narrowing down the list of suspects.

As players came to this desperate realization, they decided to reveal the contents of their envelopes. Stig revealed what he had seen during the night, which forced Seamus to invent a rather strange role – so strange that he was believed. It was a classic example of the “Big Lie” theory in action. I was surprised how ready people were to believe that I’d give someone such a flimsy role.

In addition, pevergreen revealed his “dirty bomb” role. This basically ensured it would be useless for the rest of the game, as the CN would never launch such a dangerous attack. At least the town had another (virtually) confirmed innocent.

HughTower was getting the benefit of the doubt from most people; however, TwilightBlade and greaterkhaan began to feel some heat. I sensed the CN were trying to use TB to draw some votes, but the town wasn’t buying it – they had figured out that TB was converted and therefore didn’t have to be lynched. I now believe that this was because TwilightBlade had told pevergreen about his conversion in the chat. Perhaps the CN were right not to reveal their identities.

However, this didn’t help much as the town couldn’t seem to pin down a better candidate. At first Caius Flaminius pulled way ahead in votes, but then the bandwagon changed directions and went after Dutch_guy. I waited a long time trying to give the town a chance, but the most votes a Mafioso ever had was two votes against GK. After two days of voting I finally closed it and allowed Dutch_guy to be lynched, with only four votes – two of which came from the CN. The town simply had no direction or leadership.

Interestingly enough, Dutch_guy was lynched while sleeping (again). I figured he was asleep and made a reference to it in the kill write-up, noting that the condemned man looked “tired.”

Lynched: Dutch_guy


Night 6

AndresTheCunning protects Stig
sapi watches Stig
Stig watches Caius Flaminius
TwilightBlade was used to attack Stig
Seamus Fermanagh attacks sapi
Sigurd Fafnesbane blocks greaterkhaan

Sapi finally predicted an attack correctly, but it was too late – he was killed and his mission failed. AndresTheCunning successfully predicted an attack for the second night in a row. This was vital for the town; they desperately needed to slow the Cosa Nuova down to give themselves more time.

Sigurd also picked a Mafioso correctly for the second straight night, but once again his target did not carry out a kill. However, since TwilightBlade’s attack failed for the second time in a row, the CN began to believe that he was being role-blocked.


Day 6

I calculated things out and decided that despite five wrong lynches in a row, the town still had a small chance. However, Destroyer of Hope and RoadKill were on the verge of being mod-killed, so I PM’d them and asked them to vote. If there were two mod-kills this round, virtually all chances for the town would disappear.

When neither player responded at first, I put out feelers in the Mafia Replacements thread. I really didn’t want to have to kill both players, as I didn’t want the game to end on such a stupid note. In the end no one responded to my invitation (except people who had already played and died), but RoadKill managed to log in and lodge a vote just before the round ended, saving himself.

This caused some people to be suspicious of him, but not enough to change the outcome of the round. The townies combined the process of elimination with a review of some earlier posts, and greaterkhaan was lynched: the first victory for the town. Destroyer of Hope, meanwhile, remained away and was eliminated.

This left 10 players, three of which were Cosa Nuova (though the town only needed to lynch two of them to win). They remained in a strong position, but a number of townies were beginning to piece the clues together. Would the CN be able to carry their lead to the end?

Lynched: greaterkhaan


Night 7

AndresTheCunning protects Stig
Sigurd Fafnesbane blocks TwilightBlade
Seamus Fermanagh attacks AndresTheCunning
HughTower attacks Stig

HughTower told me he was originally planning to attack Warmaster Horus, but the death of Destroyer of Hope forced him to reconsider. I’m not certain how these two things were related; regardless, HughTower should’ve gone with his original plan. His decision to attack Stig instead led to another blocked attack.

AndresTheCunning’s final protection mission was a success, even though he was killed during the night. He had slowed the Cosa Nuova down just enough to give the town a chance.

The CN, believing that TwilightBlade was being role-blocked, gave him the night off and allowed their resident “surgeon,” Seamus Fermanagh, to carry out the attack instead. Interestingly enough this paid off, as TwilightBlade was blocked for the first time. If the CN hadn’t made the switch, they would’ve had no successful attacks this night.


Day 7

HughTower had garnered some suspicion in the previous round, and as expected, he began to feel the heat immediately, although some people remained suspicious of Caius Flaminius. Sigurd was also questioned, but was ready with a solid defense.

However, the discussion quickly turned. At the beginning of the round, Seamus was still solidly on the “innocent” list of most people. However, AndresTheCunning began to voice doubts about Seamus’ innocence. He was solidly on the trail of the mafia at this point – I especially liked this post, in which he named both Mafiosi:


A while ago, I was suspicious about Seamus because of his continuous analysing and "go with the flow"-attitude, meanwhile never really taking position, never taking risks in accusing somebody. A bit like HughTower does as well. I accepted Seamus' innocence as a fact, because of the weird role name. Now I'm starting to doubt, because he seems like the only one with a weird sounding role... Also the 33% chance seems a bit low and is a pretty good excuse for not getting killed. At such a low succes rate, he should be low on the mafia targets list. Which is convenient in case of a false claim. Did Seamus know who was getting protection in the two nights previous to last one?

At last Seamus’ story began to unravel; various people began pointing out inconsistencies that I thought would’ve been caught sooner. He tried the “resigned” defense, opting not to launch into a detailed argument and instead to post very little in his defense. Seamus, my friend, it didn’t work in Mafia V and it didn’t work here. The truth is that it makes no sense for a townie to respond that way so close to the end of the game with everything on the line.

I really think that what doomed Seamus ultimately was the fact that he simply behaved differently as a guilty player. His analyses were lacking and most of his posts were overly “safe.” In general the CN were getting into trouble for this; HughTower was being fingered because he had toned down his aggressive, abrasive style. Despite having acquired a huge early lead, they were in danger of a collapse at the end. After the first five rounds I think they expected to coast to victory; however, their overly-conservative playing was coming back to haunt them. HughTower was now in an extremely difficult position, as he was already getting a lot of suspicion. If he was lynched the town would win.

However, after the execution only eight players remained. This meant, essentially, that the town was likely to get only one more chance – and that everything would hinge on what happened on the following night…

Lynched: Seamus Fermanagh


Night 8

HughTower attacks Stig
TwilightBlade used to attack Sigurd Fafnesbane
Sigurd Fafnesbane blocks Caius Flaminius
Stig watches HughTower

The night actions proved decisive, as Sigurd Fafnesbane was not killed, but converted. Stig’s night action failed, since as a night watchman, he would normally get his information at the same time as I posted the night’s events. This resulted in a very difficult situation for the town – there were seven players left, three of which were mafia. The only way the town could win is if all four innocent players voted for HughTower.


Day 8

Sigurd, in his responses to me, showed that he was not terribly excited about having been converted. Having learned a lesson with TwilightBlade, the Cosa Nuova decided not to reveal to him their identities to him. They simply sent him instructions (through me) to vote and argue for the lynching of Caius Flaminius. Sigurd’s first attack on Caius was posted even before he received these instructions. He easily deduced that HughTower was the remaining original CN operative, while TwilightBlade was a convert.

Sigurd claimed he had blocked Caius (incidentally he was telling the truth). Sasaki Kojiro suggested that Sigurd may have been converted, but this was never taken very seriously. Ultimately Caius was too easy of a scapegoat. There wasn’t much discussion at all in the final round, although I left the voting open for a long time.

Caius was lynched by only a 3-2 margin, but it was actually not as close as that would seem to imply. Sigurd Fafnesbane was the one who received two votes, and the only other serious candidate for lynching was TwilightBlade, suggested by Sasaki Kojiro.

It wouldn’t have mattered if either Sigurd or TwilightBlade were lynched, though. There would’ve been two kills (with no doctor or roleblocker there was no way to stop them), leaving two Mafiosi and two townspeople. This would’ve satisfied the victory conditions for the Cosa Nuova.

Sasaki could not have known that all doctors and roleblockers had been taken out of play, or that the CN had two converts, so his suggestion was not entirely unreasonable. However, the town really needed to lynch HughTower this round to win.

Lynched: Caius Flaminius


Night 9

Sigurd Fafnesbane used to attack Warmaster Horus
TwilightBlade used to attack RoadKill

Sigurd, who apparently wasn’t sure of pevergreen’s “dirty bomb” claim and thought that pevergreen might be a doctor, wanted to block him. However, converts are under the direct control of the Cosa Nuova at night, and HughTower’s orders overrode Sigurd’s plan. Sigurd wanted to talk with the CN directly, but HughTower was reluctant to allow this as he wasn’t absolutely sure the game was over. Technically I had to allow the final round of orders, since if HughTower had opted to attack pevergreen directly he would’ve been killed and the town would’ve won after all.

Once I received the orders, the game was effectively over – it was just a matter of writing the final story. HughTower sent me an excellent narrative for the kills, done by cow stampede and syringe. For the climax I decided that MI-6 would decide to carpet-bomb the entire area in a desperate attempt to contain the spread of the Cosa Nuova’s nanite-induced mind-network. Later I was told this had some parallels to the movie Outbreak, which I wasn’t aware of as I’ve only seen a small amount of that movie.

Busyness at work and in my personal life delayed the end-of-game post, but in the end I was pretty happy with the result.


Game Result

I would like to congratulate the Cosa Nuova, including HughTower, Seamus Fermanagh, greaterkhaan, Sigurd Fafnesbane, and TwilightBlade, on their victory! They played a commendable game, though it was not without flaws. A few early missteps garnered them some suspicion, but they sidestepped it and survived the first five rounds without losing a single member. Their overly-conservative play almost destroyed them in the end, but they were fortunate enough to convert Sigurd at the last minute and turn the game back in their favor.

Several townspeople played an excellent game as well. One of the main reasons for the town’s defeat, I thought, was that they fooled around a little too much in the first half of the game. That works in some game setups, but I knew from the beginning it wouldn’t work in mine. They had opportunities, but didn’t capitalize on them until it was too late.

Also, some overly-venomous discussion drove a few useful people completely out of the game. Ichigo, who had been suspicious of greaterkhaan early in the game, chose to commit suicide because of this, leaving me no choice but to forbid him from posting in the game any longer. In addition, GeneralHankerchief, who pegged Seamus very quickly, abandoned the game after a couple of rounds, though the reasons for this aren’t entirely clear to me.

As for the game balance, some may suggest that the Cosa Nuova were overpowered. They may have been, but if so, it was only slightly so. The town had a few breaks go against them early on, such as the death of BlackAxe3001 and the ineffective use of the Agent Bayingana role. The original pro-town roles had more potential than was realized. When I realized the town was in danger of being completely stomped, I handed out a large number of additional pro-town roles. This seemed to restore the balance, giving the town a large boost, as they had a lot more information to work with. Therefore, the game went down to the wire, which is what I intended.

I was very pleased with this game, all things considered. There was a lot of activity, plenty of twists, and only a few mod-kills. Of course I wish there had been fewer mod-kills and suicides, as this could’ve extended the game by one more round (I really would’ve rather had nine voting rounds than eight), but it was well-played. In addition, it was fun to narrate, although I think I sometimes spent too much time on the write-ups, which caused some game delays.

Everyone, thanks for playing! I’m glad you enjoyed it. :bow:

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Y'all spent too much time talking about me first 4 rounds.

Great write up Kommodus, and a great game. I think the number of posts attests to that. End was frustrating in a way, we had the mafia identified but didn't have time to lynch them. I forgot that we could win by lynching the third original CN.

[pevergreen]

:embarassed: Im not really a high profile player...

I do think i should not have hinted that much at my role. But only if he attacked me! Noooo!

It was a toss-up between getting killed by a converted or having another confirmed innocent.

[Andres]

Great write-up Kommo :bow:

Oh, and I did not try to circumvent the rules, I merely interpreted them differently and tried to be creative. It's not the same :snobby:

~;)

Oh, and a hint for future game masters: add this rule: "you are not allowed to translate my pm's"...

I liked that one, StigTheCunning :grin:

[sapi]

Again, thanks, Kommodus :bow:

[Kommodus]

Oh, and I did not try to circumvent the rules, I merely interpreted them differently and tried to be creative. It's not the same :snobby:

~;)

Oh, and a hint for future game masters: add this rule: "you are not allowed to translate my pm's"...

I liked that one, StigTheCunning :grin:

:laugh4:

You evil circumventer, you! ~;)

The thing is, I didn't want to be too restrictive. My PMs have a unique style which is hard to duplicate, so I figured it would be too easy for people to use them as proof - that's why I made the "no quoting" rule. (I've noticed this is a rule over at mafiascum.net.)

However, I wanted people to be able to paraphrase - i.e. "I got a PM from Kommo indicating I was a night watchman with the following abilities, etc." But some people tried the old "checksum" trick, i.e. "the second word is 'and', the twelfth word is 'active', the seventeenth word is..."

That, IMO, is very plainly in violation of the "no quoting" rule. If I had simply meant that the entire PM could not be quoted, why not simply quote everything except, say, the very last word?

And a translated PM is also in the same league as quoting - Stig! :stare:

But no worries, none of it wrecked the game, so I forgive everyone who tried to circumvent my rules - even Killfr3nzy, who was by far the most egregious offender. I wonder what makes people think it's OK to create a second account to give themselves an advantage in these games. You'd think that wouldn't have to be said. :dizzy2: :no:

I guess some people just naturally think like a lawyer... :laugh4:


Im not really a high profile player...

Sure y'are, pever. ~;) By "high-profile" I mean someone who draws a lot of attention - which you do. Perhaps not deliberately, but it's just your way.

People focus on high-profile players, which is why low-profile mafiosi can sneak by - look at Dutch_guy in Mafia VI for an example.

[Stig]

Great write-up Kommo :bow:

Oh, and I did not try to circumvent the rules, I merely interpreted them differently and tried to be creative. It's not the same :snobby:

~;)

Oh, and a hint for future game masters: add this rule: "you are not allowed to translate my pm's"...

I liked that one, StigTheCunning :grin:

Still I did not quote them, I did the same as you:

You send me the PM:
I'll spend the night with you darling (in Dutch)

I only translated parts of the PM, and in the same way you revealed your role to me, not literally

[Andres]

Still I did not quote them, I did the same as you:

You send me the PM:
I'll spend the night with you darling (in Dutch)

I only translated parts of the PM, and in the same way you revealed your role to me, not literally

We did not reveal. We only gave subtle hints and little clues. It's different. Maybe I meant to really spend the night at your place. You don't live that far...

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Good points, Kommo. You analyzed my play pretty well, now that I look back on it. The motivations you ascribe me and the ones I believed were motivating me weren't always the same....but your version was the truth (when I stop and really re-consider) as much as the version that was in my head at the time.

It is REALLY hard to be mafia. Every natural instinct you have creates subtle differences in your style of play -- "tells" -- and many of these are difficult if not impossible to be aware of and to eradicate.

Now, here's a thought:

Sasaki is correct in that a nasty bandwagon slammed onto an innocent player is the town's best tool. Only under that kind of pressure will a player -- trying to survive -- spew posts with the level of detail that (as with Sigurd just before the conversion here) simply work and demonstrate their innocence. A mafioso under that threat must use the big lie -- and even if it works in the short run these always unravel. I know mine did.

[Kommodus]

Good points, Kommo. You analyzed my play pretty well, now that I look back on it. The motivations you ascribe me and the ones I believed were motivating me weren't always the same....but your version was the truth (when I stop and really re-consider) as much as the version that was in my head at the time.

It is REALLY hard to be mafia. Every natural instinct you have creates subtle differences in your style of play -- "tells" -- and many of these are difficult if not impossible to be aware of and to eradicate.

That, in a nutshell, is why profiling methods such as Holmes can work. People aren't always fully aware of what motivates them to act as they do - if they were, they could better control their behavior and Holmes would flatline. A good profiler can see things about a person that even they themselves aren't aware of.


Sasaki is correct in that a nasty bandwagon slammed onto an innocent player is the town's best tool. Only under that kind of pressure will a player -- trying to survive -- spew posts with the level of detail that (as with Sigurd just before the conversion here) simply work and demonstrate their innocence. A mafioso under that threat must use the big lie -- and even if it works in the short run these always unravel. I know mine did.

You know, when the argument over this erupted in round one, I sided (silently of course) with Sasaki as well. He's right that the odd pressure vote here and there isn't enough to get mafiosi to talk - they're far more likely to ignore such votes, acting uninterested, as they are more afraid of appearing over-defensive.

It is hard for a mafioso to come up with a truly plausible lie when under pressure, especially since people are looking for it...

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Yes. "pressure voting" has become standard mafia procedure by now, it's not a real sign of working to catch scum. We used to be able to catch scum with that, but orgahs are getting better at being mafia. Unfortunately it's become hardcoded that anyone who puts the 3rd or 4th vote on gets widely accused and so hardly anyone comes under pressure.

The problem for the town I think is rereading. 50 pages is too much. I have a plan for that for next game though.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I have my pages set at 40 posts -- and this still is up to page 39. I advocated the parallel "info" thread thing back when Capo showed a jump in post count. Obviously that only helps with the Day/Night moderator posts.

What's your idea, Sasaki? Don't worry that I'll steal it without credit, I'm just interested as I am mentally gearing up for the next Capo in 4-6 weeks.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

I was thinking of assigning townies to sets of pages they were supposed to reread. So if the town was thinking of lynching *player* then individuals would only have 5-10 pages to reread instead of the whole thing.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Bah, good game CN. :shame:

I was the primary reason why this game got so heated midway through. I try not to let my emotions get the better of me but it failed this time. Sasaki, I was just so mad at you for not taking anyone seriously and then later on the town for not lynching him. I took my frustrations out on Ichigo in the chat which caused him to suicide. Not a proud moment.

Anyways, this was frustrating and after I took some time off I realized that I missed too much to catch up.

But to future mafiosi - don't think that it'll happen twice. :yes: Once again, nice job to the Cosa Nuova and Kommodus for hosting a great game.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

I would have taken you seriously, but thought I could prove my innocence.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

But to future mafiosi - don't think that it'll happen twice. :yes: Once again, nice job to the Cosa Nuova and Kommodus for hosting a great game.

...if you're playing fewer than 10 games at that moment! :cheesy: Once a mafia distracts or annoys you and you back away, catching up is nigh unto impossible.

Since you had me pegged early, I lucked out this time. Though I really would have preferred you "on the team." :devilish:

[Stig]

Well Seamus you won't pull that role trick again. That works once, but never again, and that is the problem. At some point you run out of tricks, and have to think of new ones

[pevergreen]

Draw attention? yey! That makes me feel good inside. :laugh4:

[Seamus Fermanagh]

In re-reading this last page I noticed a disturbing repetition of the phrase "Sasaki is right" or other variants on same. Someone please get the moderator to close the thread before Sasaki can get all swollen-headed over this.



:smartass2:

[seireikhaan]

Well, here's how the game went from the point of view of a complete noobie mafia. A word of caution, this will likely be a very long post.

Being my first try at mafia, I was rather surprised to find out that I'd been named a mafioso alongside Hughtower and Seamus. Being new, I naturally had almost no idea who any of the players were, including my teammates. I knew of Ichigo a little bit, in addition to BlackAxe, mostly from chat. I also knew of GH, from reading up on previous mafia games in the faq. So, naturally, I didn't really have a ton of ideas for who to go for in kills, it would pretty much have to be on the job training.

Night One: Initially, I didn't quite comprehend the rules, thinking that each of the mafiosi would be able to do two kills per round. Therefore, I wrote up two different kill ideas, eventually going with the second one. We talked it out, and eventually came to a conclusion. I wanted to go for GH, figuring it'd be quite nice if he happened to be a convert. Hugh wanted BlackAxe. While I felt bad to have him killed off so quick, I had no reason for him to be left alive, so he perished. Unfortunately, I ran into some comp/time zone issues and didn't get my pm off in time. Seamus had me covered, however, and unleashed the surgeon for the first time. I must say that I was quite happy that Seamus went through with my kill target, even though he didn't need to and had his own ideas as well for targets. Overall, I'd like to thank both of my primary partners in crime right now for a wonderfully played game, and not letting me drag them down too much.

Day One: Okay, definitely not a great start to my career so far. I couldn't get my first kill in on time, and I ended up grabbing attention to myself, inadvertantly, when I voted Myrdraal in the first round. My goal was to find someone who used good, solid reasoning, and vote for someone who wasn't getting bandwagoned. Ironically, the first person to point me out was Hugh, in an attempt to lessen people's suspicion of us working together. However, no pressure really ammounted to much so far. It's here that Sasaki started getting pressure from his fellow townies. He ends up in a 5-5 tie with Warluster, who gets lynched quickly after the announcement when Stig shifts his vote to him. I wondered what Stig was up to, since it seemed to me that it would be near suicide to break the tie in such a manner. However, Stig would prove me wrong and survive till nearly the end.

Night Two: We end up quickly agreeing on killing off Rdece. I wasn't quite sure why to kill him off, but I trusted my fellow(and more experienced) mafiosi on their judgement. On the other one, we needed a little more deliberation. i wanted Andres dead, he came accross as very coherent, intelligent, and therefore, dangerous. I also thought he would've made a nice addition to the team. Looking back, I kinda wish we'd killed him then, considering all the trouble he gave us once he became a doctor. My other consideration was Sasaki, because I thought it would automatically draw attention to Ichigo for lynching, since the two had been having some spats. Again, looking back, I'm VERY glad that my teammates shot this idea down, as Sasaki provided a most wonderful shield while he was still alive. Seamus suggests Ichigo for a target for his surgeon. However, me and Hughtower both shoot the idea down, given Ichigo's magnetic properties. Hugh suggests Crazed Rabbit for a kill and Seamus wholeheartedly agrees. Again, I don't know much about CR, so I have no real objection to it. Seamus went for CR and I went for Rdece. And now, for the kill that GH applauded as "best death ever". At the beginning, Kommo told us to "be creative". The vernarial nanites was about as far as my creativity could stretch. Much credit must go to Kommodus. I gave the basic idea and outline, and he took off with it. I particularly liked the reference to the beatitudes.

Day Two: From what I'm seeing, it looks like a lot of random votes with little evidence to back them. I'm beginning to think I might just slip under the radar. However, my vote on Tran draws fire on me, since I was criticising him for voting based on a past game. Unfortunately, I wasn't really thinking about how I had in my previous vote done exactly that, voting Myrdraal because of how he would be a likely person to target GH because of past games. Sasaki pretty much nails me dead on from here on out. Again, I escape truly heavy fire for now, though. Now GH really go's hard after Sasaki, something that would end up haunting the town, as the fued between the two not only gets Sasaki lynched in the long run, but, apparently, helped bring about Ichi's suicide. Now for the most baffling thing to me so far this game. I explained that I was only the third person out of five to vote for Tran. Apparently, there's some kind of curse on people who vote third on a bandwagon. Let me just say, I would've been a very unhappy person if I'd been lynched for something like that. However, this ultimately slipped under the radar after a while. I just thought it ironic that the town could have actually pegged me on it, therebye creating, as Sigurd put it, the "curse of greaterkhaan, to be put right alongside curse of Kagemusha" in the mafia faq. That wouldn't have been very welcome from my perspective. If i'm gonna be put in the faq, that's not one of the things I'd want to be in for. In the end, Tran gets lynched from the early bandwagon.

Night Three: Well first, I complained to Hugh and Seamus that Kommo went and killed my spider(black widow-e.g.-prostitute). "Don't worry, I'm sure Kommo will give you another one to play with:D" Well, Kommo ended up squishing the spider, saying it would be too inappropriate to have as a kill theme. Can't really say I disagree, in the end. Kommo ended up writing my kill entirely himself. I felt pretty low at this point, Kommo surely couldn't be very impressed with me. I was late on one kill, which ended up not getting used. Another kill idea got squashed and he wrote the kill entirely by himself. Needless to say, I was pretty much feeling like a third leg at this point to the mafia, as I hadn't really helped out a whole lot, other than surviving. And even at that, I'd drawn the suspicion of not just Sasaki, but GH as well. But sitting around moping about it would do no good, so I would just have to try better from now on. We end up rather quickly agreeing on Kagemusha and Disco as our targets, and they perish. I was a little disheartened at not getting a convert yet, I'd really been hoping for a little help.

Day Three: Now things get even worse for me. Ichigo comes after me IMMEDIATELY out of the gates. At first, its something of a joke vote, going back to Rise of Civs when we had a discussion that degenerated to the point of me becoming a blood crazed werewolf addicted to acid. However, the joke soon becomes a legitimate threat. He points out my inconsistencies and I'm fearing that my time has now come. However, here comes Andres to the rescue! Andres hammers Sasaki on the fact that he hadn't proven his innocence yet, when he had promised to prove it two rounds ago. Ultimately, Sasaki provides me a brilliant shield to hide behind, with only Ichigo really coming to his defence hard. GH comes after Sasaki hard again, this time armed with multiple's of the amazing bandwagon smilie for support. Unfortunately, he also believes me to be mafia as well, however for completely wrong reasons, such as the "curse" and because of Sasaki taking his vote off of me in the previous round, after the lynching. I try making a post to show the absurdity of the "curse"(which coincedentally seems to actually exist to a degree), and to discredit GH. However, I don't think I accomplished much, perhaps coming off as overly defensive. This round ends up getting quite bitter, with GH saying that the town deserved to lose if they didn't kill Sasaki, not to mention Sasaki getting hammered every which way, plus me trying to make GH look bad as well. By the end, we've got GH referring to the game as "total crap". I try responding my best to Ichigo, but he seems pretty dead set agains lynching me, regardless of my defense. Again we've got a tie Sasaki shifts his vote to xdeathfire to save himself, though it only postponed the inevitable. Also, it seems that since Sasaki survived the round, GH basically gave up on this game. The lynching get posted, and hooray, some good news. Omanes committed suicide. In addition, a truly nutty WoG, killing of three more players. A personal fav of mine: "toss me a mine!"

Ok, I relize that my write-up for the game isn't even halfway done yet. However, time isn't on my side, as I've got exams to study for as well. I'll continue this in a later post.

[Warmaster Horus]

Take your time.
It's good for us poor townies to have insight in the Mafia's actions... Better still to know that they worry just as much as us.

And, Seamus...

Someone please get the moderator to close the thread before Sasaki can get all swollen-headed over this.


I believe Sasaki is the moderator. Now, how long until Tosa closes this thread? Because Sasaki certainly won't...

[Seamus Fermanagh]

And, Seamus...

I believe Sasaki is the moderator.

...uh...that was the point of my joke....

:wall: I need to use emoticons more for clarity. :shame: Or even more people will come to believe that I am stupid. :yes:

[sapi]

Be an interesting PM to read :grin2:


I've noticed that Kommo's CN2 thread has been infested of late with comments that could cause a certain member - you know who he is, i believe - to get an inflated opinion of himself.

In order to maintain peace and stability in the gameroom, I request that you close this affected thread immediately.

Yours sincerely,
x

/runs

[Kommodus]

Night Three: Well first, I complained to Hugh and Seamus that Kommo went and killed my spider(black widow-e.g.-prostitute). "Don't worry, I'm sure Kommo will give you another one to play with:D" Well, Kommo ended up squishing the spider, saying it would be too inappropriate to have as a kill theme. Can't really say I disagree, in the end. Kommo ended up writing my kill entirely himself. I felt pretty low at this point, Kommo surely couldn't be very impressed with me. I was late on one kill, which ended up not getting used. Another kill idea got squashed and he wrote the kill entirely by himself.

Aw, no worries bro. ~:pat: I thought you did a fine job for your first time as a mafioso!

There were a couple of reasons why I didn't allow the black widow theme. First, using the creative license you gave me the first time, I had written the kill as an "experiment" by the Cosa Nuova - an attempt to spread the nanite "plague" as an STD. Once the experiment had failed, there was no reason to repeat it, was there?

Also, there's only so many times I can write a scene like that before it gets old and repetitive - there are limits to even my imagination. A little goes a long way, so they say - and I wanted to keep things fresh.

Seamus managed to keep his surgeon-themed kills interesting by trying a different approach each time, though he did repeat the same method once - something I wasn't too pleased with. Theoretically this may have been possible with the black widow too, but as I said, I really didn't want a sex-themed game.

So you mostly did quite well, with a few slip-ups. You survived longer than I thought you would! :2thumbsup:


However, here comes Andres to the rescue! Andres hammers Sasaki on the fact that he hadn't proven his innocence yet, when he had promised to prove it two rounds ago.

People who were interrogated got a message indicating they had been "detained and questioned by a mysterious disguised indidual," etc, etc. I wasn't sure what effect this would have on the game, but apparently it had a bigger impact than I thought it would.

They thought they had been investigated by the "detective," when in fact they had merely been role-blocked. Once, when pevergreen asked about this, I warned him not to assume too much. The PMs that interrogated people received were written in narrative form, and never mentioned any "detective."

I'm not sure how Sasaki intended to "prove" his innocence, as that would've required the detective to reveal - something Sasaki had no control over. In the end, this had the effect of keeping the town focused on one issue for the first half of the game, blind to all else that moved...

[pevergreen]

Sasaki was roleblocked. Everyone thought it was investigated.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

The "I told him everything I knew" bit led me astray I guess. Although wasn't the agent a 50% chance investigative role anyway?

[Kommodus]

The "I told him everything I knew" bit led me astray I guess. Although wasn't the agent a 50% chance investigative role anyway?

Yes. His results basically said "your interrogation was inconclusive... he claimed to be a simple villager, and as far as you could determine he was telling the truth." The 50% thing didn't really matter in the end since he never interrogated a mafioso. It simply meant that he couldn't actually clear your name.