Rampage Out of Space

Here's the thing, there is no problem for HK. There's a problem for town. One of the two of you is a wolf, that's guaranteed. So gg to whomever it is I guess. see you all in post.

https://i.imgflip.com/2l1c8f.jpg

Let it rip, man.

You've earned your big villain moment in the limelight.

"if it wasn't for you pesky mechanics..."

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Winston Hughes

Philosophical lolcatting?

You are truly a prince among scumbags, hk.

:bow:

---

It's copypasta
question is: do I hammer myself and get this over with or do I wait for dolby to come to his senses

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Winston Hughes

Let it rip, man.

You've earned your big villain moment in the limelight.

---

if only I had a big villain moment

@Dolby @Winston Hughes any chance either of you is willing to re-evaluate and not vote for me? If the answers no I'm hammering myself in 11 minutes

Quote:

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Originally Posted by hollowkatt

@Dolby @Winston Hughes any chance either of you is willing to re-evaluate and not vote for me? If the answers no I'm hammering myself in 11 minutes

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No, I can't see any chance of me changing my mind.

If it was actually Dolby here I would be absolutely blown away.

2 minutes till I hammer

vote: hollowkatt
@Montmorency game is over

ggwp wolf

I think I'm now 0-4 as town in lylo, 1-0 as wolf
I don't generally make lylo lol

Host Notice

There is no hammer in this game, but if you would all - including @Csargo - like there to be, then Hollow shall be hammered. Resolution shall come around set end of phase, however.

Vote:HK

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

Host Notice

There is no hammer in this game, but if you would all - including @Csargo - like there to be, then Hollow shall be hammered. Resolution shall come around set end of phase, however.

---

@Montmorency that's fine.

yeah, i'm fine with that

i guess so

I want to torture myself for another 3.5 hours

I can't be here for the rest of day

end it

DAY IS OVER

DO NOT POST

Day Six
https://i.imgur.com/lcGgc4H.png

The last Bionic was right there with them, right now, and it was killing.

Marines, this is it! Find the damn borg - do it now or we die!

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Everyone present was convinced Captain hollowkatt was behind it all. Even hollow himself wondered whether there might not be something to the accusations.

Allow me to cut the tension, comrades, burbled Csargo.

In a heartbeat she had put her nanoblade through Hollow's neck, but all were surprised to see that he had managed to raise an arm in salute before being perforated. What an honorable Marine.

Wait - that's illegal! Marines don't have swords...

Captain McGinty further considered the matter, then added:

And I'm certain I played a direct role in dishonorably discharging the last and only woman among us.

Dismissing pretenses, Csargo cast off the rest of her disguise. With an upward slash McGinty was torn apart. Captain Winston Hughes McGinty never knew what hit him as he dropped dead.


Hollowkatt was a

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

UMENSES Operator!

Winston McHughes was a

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

UMENSES Operator!

Many shouts of dismay arose, but even as dozens of lazer rifles clicked and clacked before her she charged at speed into the mass of men, faster than they could track her, expertly weaving her blade among them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFaOM5pSBQc

In less than a minute most of the remainder of the UMENSES remnant had perished. The scattered survivors had not been shooting much as they tried and failed to get a bead on the alacritous Bionic, unable at all to challenge Csargo as she bore down on Major Montmorency.

But just as she leaped at him with a swing, he deployed a magnetic pulse from his armor that sent her skidding into a wall, allowing a few opportunistic shots to put some flash in her.

Marines, this is all just part of Phase 18(a)(7)(c) of our Operation Blenheim! the Major announced.

Luckily for him, he had salvaged General Hankerchief's fiducial quantum state teleportation beacon, which could be used to recover any user from - theoretically - any spacetime coordinates within the solar system.

I shall return, my friends!

And with that he vanished from the scene.

As Csargo rolled back to her feet, she sensed that she ought to vacate the premises imminently. She recloaked amid some desultory fire from the survivors and sprinted for the surface.

Sergeant Lieutenant Visorslash surveyed the deplorable scene.

I think we're dead, right?

...

Some minutes later, a 500-ton conventional thermobaric device detonated over the busiest Ducky Sleaze Shameless Pizza outlet in the world, collapsing the uppermost level of the subterranean complex it capitated.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Coda

Csargo gets promoted with extra mods for her victorious extraction; she will continue to rise through the ranks as the Bionics rebuild their operations on the Libertanian continent. Probably many setbacks arise for UMEN.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFCClIC-ZXs



MAFIA VICTORY!
Csargo — Mafia Infiltrator (Framer)
Vroendal — Mafia Supralatus (Godfather)
Timsup2nothin — Mafia Operator (Goon)

https://i.imgur.com/GSS4bro.jpg

Surprise! :sick: Story below

Laurentus ought to have submitted matching orders to me N4 to scan Csargo with Zelda, per the role info, but when he did he replied to Zelda but not to me, so I never received the orders. Thinking it was a misunderstanding, I offered Zelda notices about this oversight, but it never got fixed; indeed, Zelda probably wasn't able to apprehend the nature of the issue. Since Zelda's slot was the one acting/interacting, I decided I couldn't further the interaction on his behalf as a host (though in retrospect I might have come up with some very subtle nudges for Laurentus, to maintain neutrality).

The point of submitting matching orders - standard practice for all group actions on the Org - is that players can always lie to each other in private, and tell the host something else. Unfortunately, the system can also fail due to inactivity or miscommunication (as here).

So by mech Zelda performed a weak scan on Csargo, not a full scan. Here were the conditionals for Zelda's unreliable weak scan:

*Full-scan (partnered): 100% true unless framed or godfathered
*Weak scan (solo): 50% true, 25% insane (false), 25% fail with target notified that you visited them
*Deathscan (oracle): reports whatever the first eligible scan result is (but Framed scans are corrected)

Dolby counted Csargo as 95% truechecked, and in abstract, yes, a false oracle is something that should occur in this setup far less than 5% of the time. And yet it did...

Yes, this is all based on a freaking technicality, because we all know Laurentus genuinely intended to cooperate with Zelda.

Absent this flub, the trajectory was for Argon to F3/F4 against all VTs today.

ggs all

Sorry for the anticlimax.

See below for all the details.



FINAL TALLY

:skull: Hollow (4): Dolby, Winston, Hollow, Csargo



Living Players (---)

Dolby (Dolbster/Dolb)
Winston Hughes (Winston/WH/McGinty)
Csargo (Csar)
Laurentus (Laur)


Dead Players (13)

Raskolnikov (D1)
c4e5g3d5 (N1)
Timsup2nothin (N1)
El-ahrairah (D2)
Garden Gnome (D3)
Lewwyn (N3)
CutePanda (N3)
NANOOK (N3)
Ibn-Khaldun (D4)
pzelda (N4)
BorgPicard (D5)
Vroendal (D5)
hollowkatt (D6)

Postmortem

So, OK, not gonna lie, this was one of the worse Town performances in my decade (!) on the Org, despite all the individually-good play. But we'll get to that. :sweatdrop:

Thanks to everyone who signed up to play or helped me piece together the design or player list, especially Visorslash. Shocked that we got through without needing replacements, that's a rarity and praiseworthy.

For over two weeks I sank a lot of time into feeling anxiety wrangling a full signup sheet. Then there was the obsessive anxiety of managing the game, writing writeups, and monitoring player actions and scenarios. Rolling host is even harder than rolling Mafia.

The overall activity level of the game was adequate (and as promised, relatively-low volume), but to achieve the proper effect and mood of sustained and intense discourse I would have liked the minposters to increase their presence. I hoped for 2K posts, expected 3K, got something in between: the Org 2.0 from 2017 more than classical Org Mafia. In the end it would have been fine if the low-activity players had posted commensurate with the average rate. Several factors may also have contributed to low thread profile for some.

1. Incompatible phase turnover time for many players (at least half of players may be non-American)
2. Having to go offsite for most players
3. Initial postcap scared people?
4. Roster contained a number of typically less-talkative players
5. Thread leaders like Tim and c4 died early

These conditions also seem to have affected the interactions between the Town PRs, who were Neighborized from the beginning. There was minimal communication between the two, which led to mistrust and led to the Detective gambling on solo-actions. Maybe I should have reduced the viability of the solo-scan, and made the decision tree clearer to the player in order to properly incentivize urgent coordination.



The single defining event of the game may have been Zelda and Laurentus' (and Lewwyn's, but Laurentus was the culminating event) inability to achieve full cooperation over the Town parity scan. Indeed, it is my signal regret that Zelda didn't take full advantage of the Detective PR, in part because of mutual paranoia in the Neighborhood, in part because of role info misunderstanding. I mean, I fucked up as host really. From MY experienced perspective it's very easy to know what to do, but Laurentus had probably never used private comms this way. No one in the game, not even Winston, was able to correctly interpret the phrase "submit matching orders." So the cop failed to leverage his PR 4 nights in a row and it guaranteed the Mafia's victory.

My dream was an ultimate showdown between Town and SK, in which Town would ultimately prevail through its grit and determination. That dream came so close to becoming a reality, as I knew that if Zelda partnered N4, Csargo would be outed and ousted, and Vroendal would die at Borg's hand that Night Five. I knew these things to a certainty based on my hidden info as host. That's why I was so desperately insistent while messaging Zelda that day (and it had to be him, I felt at the time I couldn't break neutrality by approaching Laurentus directly).

We were so close to having Borg vs. idk, Winston and Dolby. And that's a confrontation that's genuinely up in the air, no one can predict the ultimate outcome. It would have been awesome to watch, from all sides.

Instead we had a death march to Hell, which carries its own sort of pleasure, but is probably hard to appreciate as a player. But Zelda's basic instinct that night was spot on, and he had solved the game before the Vroendal derp. It's just that I had to obey the rand, which has now tilted every faction in the game.

But at least we can take comfort in knowing what almost was.



Relatedly, why the heck were you townies (and Maf to a lesser extent) so disinterested in mech and writeups, even when I as host told you they were important? It just limited your play. At the very least, figure that the big image of a scary monster may mean something as distinguished from the rest.

I didn't expect this game to reach the setup's full potential of a ~D5 Serial Killer endgame, but I wanted the scenario to be present; I presume it influenced the slot's play, but only Borg can say (ironically, Argon's alias for this site unknowingly perpetuated his meta of claiming PRs or non-town alignments). We do know that his N3 kills were oriented primarily around killing Dolby voters, which arguably weakened his position subsequently.

One regret I do have is not trying to make the Mafia PRs as flashy and unique as the others (even if that would have required an across-the-board rebalancing).


I designate four Posts of the Game.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Argon in the last post of D1 Twilight

Oh yeah by the way I actually did n0 check you Tim. Just be aware of that.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Argon's reaction to N3 writeup

That doesn't seem like town vigi flavor

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Csargo in scumchat

I am 1000% sure people will be angry [about Zelda's false oracle] when this is over Monty.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dolby in private comms N5

I think mafia lost purely because of a bad rand

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Specific Player Shoutouts:

Winston & Laurentus: Very high energy. Winston MVP for being the only player reading writeups.

Notably, Winston, Laurent, and Hollow went so apeshit as the game progressed that they made around half of all player posts in the game, with Dolby at their heels in his Discord.

Vroendal: Once he shows up, he posts himself clear. Endgame material.

Borg: Most of his contributions were a combination of soft and hard-claims of SK. Your meta is Rampage-doomed my friend, enjoy your time in the wilderness.

Game Information

Night Actions

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

N0 - Borg scans Tim mafia

N1 - Borg kills Tim; Mafia kill c4 and frame Borg; Zelda solo-scans WH Heads (i.e. Town)

N2 - LEWWYN USES IRON CURTAIN; Borg kills [fails] nanook and garden gnome; Mafia kill LA and frame HK; Zelda scans Lewwyn

N3 - Borg kills Panda and Nanook; Mafia kill Lewwyn and frame HK; Zelda solo-scans Nanook (Tails-Heads = false result)

N4 - Borg scans Laurentus; Mafia kill Zelda HK Zelda and frame Dolby; Zelda solo-scans Csargo (Tails-Heads = false result) + deathscan;

N5 - Mafia kills Laurentus

D6 - Mafia dayvig holster

Private Comms
Mafia QT: https://www.quicktopic.com/53/H/nCGkH324K8w
Neighbors QT: https://www.quicktopic.com/53/H/73JqrpGXT28j
Graveyard QT: https://www.quicktopic.com/53/H/zgdC4Mgrc2D
N5 Discord: https://discord.com/channels/8389691...69152931627050


Role PMs (including hidden info and notes)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Vanilla Town

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

https://i.imgur.com/ZwQI1Xz.jpg

UMENSES Operator

You are a Marine, or maybe a whole fireteam of Marines, with at least 5 years of exemplary combat service.
Every one of you steely-eyed veterans has been blooded against the Bionics before.
The present battle engaged and after days of hard fighting both sides have nearly been wiped out.
Now, with the remnants of the Bionic command group cornered, you have your chance to fulfill your mission and return a hero.

You are Vanilla Town. You win when all threats to your mission are eliminated. Vote in the thread every day to liquidate potential threats.

There is a hard 125-post cap Days 1-3. Vote-only posts do not count toward the cap during EOD only. Twilight is always uncapped.

Town Detective

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

https://i.imgur.com/5wXAXf8.jpg

Detective

Your cybernoir career has been built on providing the very best record in tracking and exposing illicit Bionic presence in our cities.
The Unified Marines knew of your reputation and have invoked your Citizen's Conscription Service clause only a month before your retirement from eligibility.
Use your skills as part of the UMENSES signals/intel detachment - or what's left of it - to support the strike element in eradicating the Bionics.

You are a parity scanner (Town). You win when all threats to your mission are eliminated. Vote in the thread every day to liquidate potential threats.

Investigate: Select someone to visit at night to discover whether their alignment is pro or anti-UMENSES. Your technology is limited in its capacity to detect such advanced taggants; your first scan will have results delayed by a round, and every third scan will also be delayed (i.e. N1 results come D3 instead of D2, and expect N3 and N6 scans to be delayed).

Overmatched (passive): You must also partner with another player to achieve your full potential. Do this by getting into private contact with any player - the host must always be CCed - and having them submit matching orders on the target. Once you begin partnering on scans, you must continue to partner with the same player for as long as they are alive (no shopping around). You may always choose to go it alone on any given night, but your results will be as little as half as reliable. The same penalty applies if your partner does not properly submit matching orders.
Networked (passive): You start with a private commlink with Lewwyn (you are Neighbors). Use this Quicktopic to chat at any time.
Stand Down (passive): When all bionics have been eliminated your abilities are retired. Any result you were about to receive at the time will be cancelled.
Dead Man's Hand (passive): Despite the technical limitations of your gear, there is a special fiducial that for some reason can only be registered in moments of extreme peril. If you die, the host will announce your earliest pending result publicly the following day-phase (i.e. dying D2/N2 releases your N1 investigation D3). If you die without any queued results pending, your last reported result will be announced. If your last target under these circumstances is also dead, the Dead Man's Hand will simply fail (such as in the case when you die N4 but your N3 and N4 targets have also died by SOD5). Dead Man's Hand is subject to the effects of Stand Down.


There is a hard 125-post cap Days 1-3. Vote-only posts do not count toward the cap during EOD only. Twilight is always uncapped.

Hidden Information

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Scan conditionals: [Postgame: I now believe these should have been made explicit in the role card, with Framer redaction]
*Full-scan (partnered): 100% true unless framed or godfathered
*Weak scan (solo): 50% true, 25% insane (false), 25% fail with target notified that you visited them
*Deathscan (oracle): reports whatever the first eligible scan result is (but Framed scans are corrected)

The deathscan bypasses Frames, boosting this otherwise-weak cop., but Detective is not informed of this as a nerf (Detective is unaware of Mafia PRs). Bizarre outcomes are possible, such as the Detective sharing a guilty result while getting ousted that day, only for the host to contradict the claimed result the next day.

If Framer and Detective both target SK, they scan Town.

I tested a lot of variations and extra elements to this design. The one that came closest to implementation was a delay on results for the first two scans. In the end there was a delay on the first scan plus every third, because while I didn't want the Detective to be TOO weak, I also wanted to give anti-Town a starting boost. It still adds up to two delayed scans in aggregate (very rare for Detective to survive to D7 * rare for any Mafia to survive until D7 * rare for game to continue until D7 at all).

In the original draft of the design, when all scans would be delayed 1 round, the SK would piggyback off them by receiving the result early if that result was non-town, thus giving the SK incentive to PR-shield the town cop. However, unlike SK scans this cop-scan premonition could still be tainted by Framing. Another notable original feature was for the Detective to be awarded improved scan accuracy in exchange for participating in a successful mafia wagon alongside their PR assistant (initial or otherwise). Ultimately these features were rejected for adding too much complexity.


The unpartnered scan, before Frames, has a 50% chance of success (subject to Framing/Godfather), 25% chance of opposite result, 25% chance of no result but alerted target. This means the average probability of any given unassisted scan producing a correct result is less than half, when counting Frames/Godfather (with a slight opposite bump for the possibility of a Town PR being Framed)
[/I]Since the Detective basically knows this, they can always choose to roll the dice, but I suspect most players will prefer to be proactive and roll the dice on correctly choosing a new PR partner. Should the Detective inadvertently contact mafia following Technician's death, this opens up many exciting possibilities for Mafia. They could just kill the Detective outright (not knowing about his deathscan unless Detective chooses to inform them), Frame their target or guide them to a target for Framing (assuming the contacted mafioso is not the Framer herself), or even bend the Detective toward SK-hunting. Alternatively, the SK would love to have the Detective fall in with them (Mafia hunt).

Detective loses PR and any queued scan results, even deathscan, if Mafia eliminated! This is to boost the SK.

Deathscan (Dead Hand) is an Oracle ability meant to buff this weakened cop as either a silver lining for being killed, or more boldly part of an active killbait strategy. However, a scan on an extant Godfather would always turn up town regardless, and in that case the deathscan could win the game for Mafia. The Frame-penetrating element was kept hidden to conceal and advantage the existence of the Mafia Framer. But the deathscan would also be subject to the Overmatched conditionals to the extent that outright scan failure means no results, pending or otherwise, that can be reported, and a falsified (but not Framed) scan will report the false result.

Town Technician

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

https://i.imgur.com/QDECHwJ.jpg

Technician

You are one of those mad scientist freaks whom the Unified Marines quietly employ in their most covert research facilities.
Trained in the field of advancing UMEN's technological primacy as a fighting force, your mastery of cutting-edge superweapons led to your deployment with the strike force.
It is rumored that the Iron Curtain device you supervise was in part reliant on alien technology in its development.
Use your skills as part of the UMENSES signals/intel detachment - or what's left of it - to support the strike element in eradicating the Bionics.

You are a unique variant of roleblocker (Town). You win when all threats to your mission are eliminated. Vote in the thread every day to liquidate potential threats.

Iron Curtain: Once in the game, submit orders to stop and fast-forward a whole Night phase; all other actions, including kills, are nullified. Cannot be used N1. The Iron Curtain cannot be stopped, so choose your timing carefully for decisive effect.

Networked (passive): You start with a private commlink with pzelda (you are Neighbors). Use this Quicktopic to chat at any time.
Incognito (passive): If you mention your ability, or that you even have one, in-thread, you will lose the ability permanently. In other words, no softing or hardclaiming anything (unless Iron Curtain has already been deployed). You may discuss your PR to any extent you please in the Neighborhood above, but your Neighbor can never mention, hint, disclose, or fabricate anything about your status or abilities outside the Neighborhood or the same penalty will apply to you. (To address a likely question, they cannot even out you as a Neighbor under this restriction.) Please don't angleshoot this one. Ask me any questions about your role privately.


There is a hard 125-post cap Days 1-3. Vote-only posts do not count toward the cap during EOD only. Twilight is always uncapped.

Hidden Information

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

When Technician activates Iron Curtain to delay the effects of Doomsday, they will die.

If the Technician has retained their ability until such time as Doomsday is declared, the host will ask for their action. For example, if SK kills final mafia N4, D5 is Doomsday and the host will ask Technician that day if they want to activate it to buy Town another round (voting will still go on but SK victory will be postponed until after following day phase, if SK survives).

There may be a tendency, given the structure of the game, for the Technician to misfire suboptimally in reaction to a night with 2+ kills. Deploying Iron Curtain the night after such a night is suboptimal because in most cases the serial killer will be recharging from a hit on a townie. On the night after the Iron Curtain the SK would be able to strike again and the full impact of the Iron Curtain would be undesirably restricted. Therefore I chose to allow the Iron Curtain to delay the SK's recharge phase should they intersect. For similar reasons, I chose to allow Iron Curtain to add further delay to the kludge already delaying the special-case SK Doomsday. That is, in the SK best-case scenario where Mafia are all killed by N2 and D3 is the special pre-Doomsday charging period, a poor situation is for N3 Iron Curtain to merely prevent the SK from thinning the town with the result of LYLO with like 8 townies. That's pretty much unwinnable, whereas Iron Curtain taking effect after a D4 ML would bargain Town down to an F6 D5.

Built-in potential to become an innocent child, either prior to deployment (at great cost), or following deployment (convince the thread they were responsible for anomalous night). Of course, Town PRs may choose to essentially sacrifice themselves by jointly hardclaiming to brute force mechanical clears. Under exceptional circumstances, Town PRs may be able to mechanically solve the game by both surviving to <F7 with proper, living, scan targets. I believe that's a proper reward for excellent PR play, since SK is aware that Town has PRs (inferentially-available through their own unframeable scan) and so are Mafia (through the existence of their own PRs). Scum should PR-hunt!!!


During the game, I answered the following from Lewwyn:

Quote:

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Quote:

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Follow up regarding my ability. Will it block all abilities activated that night or will it also block delayed abilities activated the night before?

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It will block delay abilities that are recharging, but not abilities with delayed results. As a theoretical example, if a PR had to wait a day between uses of an ability, the Iron Curtain would reset the timer, because it's an external action, whereas if someone were poisoned earlier, that clock would run out and the player would die as they were bound to even under the effect of Iron Curtain.

---

Mafia Hidden Information

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Right off the bat, there is an incredibly spicy strategy available to Mafia: bus hard and fast in order to starve SK. Will they notice? Observing it in action might be even more exciting if it were done later and in extemporaneous fashion, out of desperation rather than calculation.

Unlockable ability: After they break one of the SK's BPs by attacking them, the Mafia will be informed that they have located the beast, it will be able to withstand "at least one more" attack by them, and they will be granted the option of exchanging the Godfather's ability for one Strongman to use against SK. If Godfather is dead, Framer may exchange their ability. If only Goon is alive, they can perform a Strongman at the expense of their life, effectively awarding Town the win. I struggled over whether to tax the Mafia all their abilities for the strongman to finish off SK, but in the end decided to cut them a small break for this run so long as I was overclocking the SK with a N0 peek. The balance concept is of course is to increase the offensive power of the Mafia against the SK, allowing them to quickly neutralize its threat, without having to tank it (i.e. waste three full NKs against it while vulnerable themselves); the sacrifice to do this is weakness against Town, so there is incentive for SK to be kept alive to potentially hit Town PR, or else just to be eliminated with reliance on Town itself - the daily ouster.
[Postgame] I would further point out that while Mafia are taxed for killing SK by night, they are rewarded - with up to 2 extra shots - for killing it by day. In the case of the current playthrough, killing at night actually becomes the cheap and easy method given that the Detective died before the SK - so giving up Godfather or Framer amounts to a free Strongman since those abilities have become obsolete.

The Mafia have an urgent stake in rapidly eliminating all enemy PRs, and receive a special dispensation with respect to the SK. Namely, they can weaken themselves against Town to more expeditiously eliminate a detected SK (or they can take another level of risk by playing very slow, tanking the SK with their kills while potentially retaining invulnerability to elimination by cop. Another bold strategy would be to identify the SK and pursue them during
day, though that strategy might often be uncovered by Town - or, most perilously, by the SK itself (in which case Mafia better not miss when they come at them).

In an early draft, if a town PR had scanned a Frame target before the Framer sacrificed their ability, the scans would be updated by host message (Godfather scan results always stay "UMENTF" unless scanned subsequent to loss of ability). In this draft, when Mafia acquire Strongman by way of sacrificing Framer ability, they would not be informed of the fact of the matter as to whether or not Detective would have scans updated - only that this is part of the risk. I rejected this draft for various reasons.

Most notable facts kept hidden from Mafia are the existence of the Technician, the limitations and potentials of the Detective role, and the details of the Serial Killer's Evolution or investigative ability. It is hidden from Framer that their ability does not fool SK scan. The SK scan pierces frames to support the balance of its design. Everyone in this game ought to be on their toes.
[Postgame] Csargo complained about the lack of forewarning about the SK's upgraded Vengeful Ferocity (from kill on wagon when sub-maj to always kill on wagon), and I can see the point. Maybe if the Mafia knew about the upgrade it would better serve to "keep them on their toes."

Mafia Goon

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

https://i.imgur.com/jdvGUiP.jpg

Bionic Operator

Quote:

---

The fighting thus far had been contained to the cities and the battlefields, as UMEN understood that any frontal assault on your fortified territories would cripple their combat elements for naught. The Bionic Front did not anticipate a diagonal envelopment of one of its secret bases by official Bad Dudes. Now you know that UMEN teleportation platforms are operational. Though 99% of the strike force has been neutralized, almost all your comrades in the sector have been killed or subdued, including the Praefectus of the Libertanian continent itself. You three are the only Bionic survivors of a tempest that has left tens of thousands dead in just hours. Moreover, the unique biochemical experiments being carried out at this location have been destroyed or disrupted. There is one whom we prize above all: BAKEMONO.

An extraterrestrial of maximum hazard and value stages, even the record of how it was acquired is too precious to be known to you. While we have no means of recovering the specimen under present conditions, we must not permit UMEN to capture it for themselves (assuming they are even capable of such a feat) nor the alien itself to wander off into the world. Destroy it and salvage what can be. Luckily, we expect this particular specimen to be struggling under the quantological restraints we've maintained it under. As long as none of us fall into its clutches, we can't lose. To that purpose, we can neither overtly act against UMEN nor the alien, lest one overwhelm us while we destroy the other in detail...

—————————————————————————————————⠀”——————

In spite of being the Bionic equivalent of a grunt, you are more than an individual match for the very best Marine alive here. Your comparative lack of stature and ability nonetheless leaves you doing the cell's scut work. If the need arises you will of course willingly take the fall in service of the Hierarchy.

---

You are a Goon (Mafia). The Mafia choose someone to kill at night. Kills are factional, and therefore not assigned (will not interfere with individual abilities). You win when BAKEMONO is slain and parity is met with Town, meaning Town cannot prevent your victory by numbers.

Use this Quicktopic to communicate.

—————

As an informed minority, you know that UMENSES has a Detective on hand, specialist in descrying for Bionics and overcoming cybernetic camouflage. Your Framer and Godfather possess countermeasures to sustain your unit's cybernetic camouflage against this threat. You also know that BAKEMONO is lurking among the mob in this place, eager to revenge itself upon the Bionics and consummate its ferocious lusts upon the planet.

WARNING: You must not allow BAKEMONO to assimilate any of you under any circumstances; the ramifications go without saying.

WARNING: Be wary of the beast even under daylight. Anything less than a majority of living humans will not overpower it easily. Carelessness or cutting corners in managing its demise could have - vengeful - consequences.

BONUS: If the creature dies by any means before N3, you will once more hold the initiative over the last-gen UMEN relics: Gain 1-shot factional vig to use at night.

BONUS: If at least one member of the unit participates in successful day elimination of BAKEMONO, that player(s) is linked to an unexpirable 1-shot dayvig through recouping some of the bio-augmentations you were experimenting with before the UMEN assault (i.e. only that player(s) can carry out the dayvig).

[SECRET]: REDACTED


There is a hard 125-post cap Days 1-3. Vote-only posts do not count toward the cap during EOD only. Twilight is always uncapped.

Mafia Framer

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

https://i.imgur.com/GSS4bro.jpg

Bionic Infiltrator

Quote:

---

The fighting thus far had been contained to the cities and the battlefields, as UMEN understood that any frontal assault on your fortified territories would cripple their combat elements for naught. The Bionic Front did not anticipate a diagonal envelopment of one of its secret bases by official Bad Dudes. Now you know that UMEN teleportation platforms are operational. Though 99% of the strike force has been neutralized, almost all your comrades in the sector have been killed or subdued, including the Praefectus of the Libertanian continent itself. You three are the only Bionic survivors of a tempest that has left tens of thousands dead in just hours. Moreover, the unique biochemical experiments being carried out at this location have been destroyed or disrupted. There is one whom we prize above all: BAKEMONO.

An extraterrestrial of maximum hazard and value stages, even the record of how it was acquired is too precious to be known to you. While we have no means of recovering the specimen under present conditions, we must not permit UMEN to capture it for themselves (assuming they are even capable of such a feat) nor the alien itself to wander off into the world. Destroy it and salvage what can be. Luckily, we expect this particular specimen to be struggling under the quantological restraints we've maintained it under. As long as none of us fall into its clutches, we can't lose. To that purpose, we can neither overtly act against UMEN nor the alien, lest one overwhelm us while we destroy the other in detail...

—————————————————————————————————⠀”——————

Your modifications have specialized you in stealth, reconnaissance, espionage, and assassination. What the Operator offers in brute force, you complement in finesse. Devisibility cloaking and bioelectric spoof-hacking are what you asked for.

---

You are a Framer (Mafia). The Mafia choose someone to kill at night. Kills are factional, and therefore not assigned (will not interfere with individual abilities). You win when BAKEMONO is slain and parity is met with Town, meaning Town cannot prevent your victory by numbers.

Your character's personal ability is Imposter: Designate a target to mask. It will appear as an enemy of the UMENSES to UMEN investigators.

Use this Quicktopic to communicate.

—————

As an informed minority, you know that UMENSES has a Detective on hand, specialist in descrying for Bionics and overcoming cybernetic camouflage. Your Framer and Godfather possess countermeasures to sustain your unit's cybernetic camouflage against this threat. You also know that BAKEMONO is lurking among the mob in this place, eager to revenge itself upon the Bionics and consummate its ferocious lusts upon the planet.

WARNING: You must not allow BAKEMONO to assimilate any of you under any circumstances; the ramifications go without saying.

WARNING: Be wary of the beast even under daylight. Anything less than a majority of living humans will not overpower it easily. Carelessness or cutting corners in managing its demise could have - vengeful - consequences.

BONUS: If the creature dies by any means before N3, you will once more hold the initiative over the last-gen UMEN relics: Gain 1-shot factional vig to use at night.

BONUS: If at least one member of the unit participates in successful day elimination of BAKEMONO, that player(s) is linked to an unexpirable 1-shot dayvig through recouping some of the bio-augmentations you were experimenting with before the UMEN assault (i.e. only that player(s) can carry out the dayvig).

SECRET: [REDACTED]


There is a hard 125-post cap Days 1-3. Vote-only posts do not count toward the cap during EOD only. Twilight is always uncapped.

Mafia Godfather

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

https://i.imgur.com/wR47lmp.jpg

Bionic Supralatus

Quote:

---

The fighting thus far had been contained to the cities and the battlefields, as UMEN understood that any frontal assault on your fortified territories would cripple their combat elements for naught. The Bionic Front did not anticipate a diagonal envelopment of one of its secret bases by official Bad Dudes. Now you know that UMEN teleportation platforms are operational. Though 99% of the strike force has been neutralized, almost all your comrades in the sector have been killed or subdued, including the Praefectus of the Libertanian continent itself. You three are the only Bionic survivors of a tempest that has left tens of thousands dead in just hours. Moreover, the unique biochemical experiments being carried out at this location have been destroyed or disrupted. There is one whom we prize above all: BAKEMONO.

An extraterrestrial of maximum hazard and value stages, even the record of how it was acquired is too precious to be known to you. While we have no means of recovering the specimen under present conditions, we must not permit UMEN to capture it for themselves (assuming they are even capable of such a feat) nor the alien itself to wander off into the world. Destroy it and salvage what can be. Luckily, we expect this particular specimen to be struggling under the quantological restraints we've maintained it under. As long as none of us fall into its clutches, we can't lose. To that purpose, we can neither overtly act against UMEN nor the alien, lest one overwhelm us while we destroy the other in detail...

—————————————————————————————————⠀”——————

As one of the most well-modified Bonics around, one who is considered to have been carried beyond human ken, you are naturally the strongest-surviving Bionic. In a fair fight against all surviving UMENSES commandos, you could probably win. Your bleeding-edge enhancements allow you to blend into and fight through almost any circumstance. Why, it's rather difficult for you to die by any purpose.

---

You are a Godfather (Mafia). The Mafia choose someone to kill at night. Kills are factional, and therefore not assigned (will not interfere with individual abilities). You win when BAKEMONO is slain and parity is met with Town, meaning Town cannot prevent your victory by numbers.

Your character's personal ability is Cybernetic Perfusion (passive): Your alignment will never be detectable to enemy roles.

Use this Quicktopic to communicate.

—————

As an informed minority, you know that UMENSES has a Detective on hand, specialist in descrying for Bionics and overcoming cybernetic camouflage. Your Framer and Godfather possess countermeasures to sustain your unit's cybernetic camouflage against this threat. You also know that BAKEMONO is lurking among the mob in this place, eager to revenge itself upon the Bionics and consummate its ferocious lusts upon the planet.

WARNING: You must not allow BAKEMONO to assimilate any of you under any circumstances; the ramifications go without saying.

WARNING: Be wary of the beast even under daylight. Anything less than a majority of living humans will not overpower it easily. Carelessness or cutting corners in managing its demise could have - vengeful - consequences.

BONUS: If the creature dies by any means before N3, you will once more hold the initiative over the last-gen UMEN relics: Gain 1-shot factional vig to use at night.

BONUS: If at least one member of the unit participates in successful day elimination of BAKEMONO, that player(s) is linked to an unexpirable 1-shot dayvig through recouping some of the bio-augmentations you were experimenting with before the UMEN assault (i.e. only that player(s) can carry out the dayvig).

SECRET: [REDACTED]


There is a hard 125-post cap Days 1-3. Vote-only posts do not count toward the cap during EOD only. Twilight is always uncapped.

Serial Killer

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

https://i.imgur.com/vTORgs4.jpg
Alien Werewolf
Codename:
BAKEMONO

No human alive now knows what you are or where you came from.
—————————————————————————————————⠀”——————
They parasitized you.
—————————————————————————————————⠀”——————
Take it back.

You are the Serial Killer. You may generally kill at night. You must submit an order to kill someone whenever you would be eligible to.

Victory Conditions
Total Defeat: Die without assimilating any Bionics (Mafia).
Major Defeat: Die while assimilating either one or two Bionics.
Minor Victory: Survive to be the last player standing without assimilating any Bionics.
Major Victory: Survive to be the last player standing while assimilating either one or two Bionics.
Total Victory: Assimilate all Bionics and survive Doomsday.

Abilities
Resilient (passive): 2X bulletproof versus nightkill (Note that retaining a BP to F3 with 1 mafia and 1 townie automatically counts as a parity victory for you)

Prior Restraint: Perform a N0 alignment scan. Submit orders before game start; if no orders are received by mid-D1 you will forfeit this seer peek.
Weak Essence (passive): You must regain what the humans took from you to achieve your true form. Before you do so you are strained by disassembling non-enhanced humans. If a kill ever lands on Town while any Mafia are alive, you must charge your next kill/s (skip one night). During a round when you have to skip the NK, you can instead...
Desperate Spoor: Perform an unframeable alignment scan on a target, probably better than anything the unmod humans can achieve.
Vengeful Ferocity (passive): If you are ousted with less than a majority vote, randomly kill a voter on your wagon. If you are ousted while in Prime form, always randomly kill a voter on your wagon. (In higher transformations, this ability will be removed for balance.)

Evolution (passive): If you kill a mafia, gain an extra kill. Each kill increments your base form (Prime, Double Prime, Triple Prime), up to your Ultimate Transformation. Weak Essence still applies until all Mafia are dead, one way or another.
(You cannot Evolve by assisting the unmodified humans in killing Bionics during the day!)

• If all Mafia are dead, and you killed none of them, you can thence kill every other night.
• If all Mafia are dead, and you killed one of them, you can thence kill once per night.
• If all Mafia are dead and you killed two of them, you can thence kill twice per night.

Triple Prime Transformation (passive): If you personally eliminated the entire Mafia faction, you achieve Triple Prime and the next day is DOOMSDAY. Survive Doomsday and you win.
If this occurs before N4, there is a day's delay as you consolidate your energies. Your hidden post cap for that day is 10. The night of that day you perform four kills and enter Doomsday on Day+1.
(For example, if you have a perfect mafia-killing record N1/2, you play D3 with a 10-post cap, kill 4 townies N3, and survive D4 to win.)
Note: If, on the same night that you would otherwise die, you kill your third mafia, you will survive by assuming Triple Prime form and Doomsday will initiate.

There is a hard 125-post cap Days 1-3. Vote-only posts do not count toward the cap during EOD only. Twilight is always uncapped.


Unsolicited advice: Don't facetiously soft being an alien or third party, you'll just alert the Mafia. This role is the centerpiece of the game, so good luck!

Hidden Information

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

PMs for Transformations

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

https://i.imgur.com/7acdskf.jpg

You have assimilated a Bionic! You advance to Prime form. You can kill twice tonight.

https://i.imgur.com/sLPnZWx.jpg

You have assimilated two Bionics! You advance to Double Prime form. You can kill three times tonight if you didn't just kill any Marines. If you did kill Marines, you must wait a night for your kill to recharge. Instead you may take advantage of your Desperate Spoor scan. Note that you have lost Vengeful Ferocity.

https://i.imgur.com/aPdLJbU.jpg

You have assimilated all three Bionics! Trrri-i-i-i-i-ple Pri-i-i-i-mmme! DOOMSDAY commences!!!
Survive to win.

The N0 peek is not something this setup should have as anything approaching its replayable form, I just wanted to prime the entertainment value and/or juicy action for this run. My baseline assumption is that the SK will not be randed by an absolute champion of a player who can by native ability easily knife every other scummo in the gut before anyone has a chance to realize. I debated whether to transmit the N0 result as soon as it was submitted/as soon as I was available to, or to withold it until N1 began. In the end I decided to do what was simpler for myself (the former).

The following applies if SK retains at least 1 BP into F3 with 1 townie and 1 mafia: the SK has already won; voting will still proceed for barbaric cruelty's sake.

Mafia are aware of Fatal Ferocity, but not its upgraded form. This is to incentivize them either to really pile onto wagons, or to steer themselves clear of it entirely.

The specification of an unframeable alignment scan in Desperate Spoor implies the existence of a (presumably Mafia) framer to the SK player.

Worst case for the SK, it misses N1, all mafia are ousted by N3, and SK kills N3/5/7 with LYLO D8. Town deserves a break for excellent play. Moreover, in a mountainous vanilla 17er the latest final round could be D8, so in fact this isn't even that much of an advantage to Town.

If Technician is killed before it can use its ability, the soonest possible mechanical endgame is D4 with 4 townies and 1 SK. (3 mislims, 3 dead maf, 2 mafia factionals, 4 townie NKed) Or even if the Mafia have wasted all their kills against the SK, I think this is satisfactory for perfect SK play.

Balance feature: SK needs Mafia to live to night; Mafia find it very difficult to eliminate the SK at night. One of the signal disadvantages of SK is that they are likely to play day avoidant of (perceived) Mafia wagons, which leaves them exposed later on for bad voting record (unless all Mafia are dead).

[4/28] I've been forced to consider for the first time, how will the game end if Argon and mafia survive past LYLO (i.e. all townies are dead)? Since Argon can't kill N6 by standard rules (assuming he doesn't kill last mafia N5), the game should either end in draw or SK death/defeat. If Argon retains both BPs - in other words has never been attacked - then my feeling is he's strong enough to force a draw with two mafia. If he has already been attacked at least once, he should die. 1-1-1 parity rule is still in effect should it be needed.

Unused Role: Hobo

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

https://i.imgur.com/vZHuRhN.jpg

Hobo

You're just some hobo who got caught up in a warzone. You can't do anything but try to survive.

You are Neutral Survivor. Your primary victory condition is to survive. You are not a threat to Marines (Town) or Bionics (Mafia).

Scavenge: Every night, target a dead player to scavenge some of their cool shit. If you do this successfully three times - at least one of the targets must be bionic, with no repeats - you will be able to leave the game with a personal victory.
Bug Out: There's absolutely no reason to stay in the crossfire once you can get away from it - right? PM the host to claim a personal victory once you are eligible. This may be done at any time in the round, night or day, provided at least one hour before end of phase. (You may even escape the daily ouster.)
Underclass (passive): If you claim your role or alignment, you will no longer be able to Scavenge (Marines will detain you from now on), meaning that unless you have fulfilled Bug Out conditions you will only be able to win the game by surviving to the end normally - when all threats to Town are dead. There are also certain dangerous organisms about who could take an interest in your biomass once outed.
[SECRET]: [SECRET]

Note: This role was introduced to catch overflow from the original design to the expanded signup sheet and shouldn't be too difficult to win with.

Hidden Information:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Secret unlockable ability if scavenging conditions were fulfilled, both Mafia and Town exist, and it is standard LILO endgame] Protagonist Branch: Your inventory is full, the danger-level is catastrophic, yet for some reason you're still hanging around. Maybe you were actually the main character all along, destined to decide the outcome of events. You have no resources, the UMEN government has failed you, and you have many cybernetic enhancements of your own. But they are all old and cheap tertiary market junk at best, and the bionics think of you as almost as bad as the un-mods. You have no familiarity with the bionic eschatological ideology. It's also unclear if the Marines here have any mercy towards the underclass. Yet, before you now is the option of PMing the host to assume either Town or Mafia alignment and victory conditions. There are no points for choosing one side over another, or for staying neutral until one faction prevails, just take whatever you feel is the right path. You forfeit the right to escape with a personal victory if you activate this ability.
Submit orders to activate either Bug Out or Protagonist Branch by midday, or by default you will retain your current wincon to survive as Third Party.

Basically this is a 3P role that, in most playthroughs, has to survive to D4 to win. If Hobo scavenges dead Mafia or the full quota of three deads, Mafia become aware of them and their alignment and SK benefit from them and may send them one message via host. Hobo cannot scavenge SK. Hobo is good for Mafia in that it's another target for town cop to peek non-Town, a free mislim. However, if SK kills Hobo while Weak Essence applies then Hobo's intermediate state allows SK to choose 1 NK next night (regardless of Evolution stage) instead of being restricted to Desperate Spoor scan. Hobo cannot invoke Protagonist Branch during Doomsday LILO. If Hobo chooses to align with Mafia, they will be informed but Hobo will not gain access to their QT.

SK does start aware that something like the Hobo exists and of its benefit vis-a-vis Weak Essence, which is that killing the Hobo does not trigger Weak Essence cooldown, and killing the Hobo while also killing Town reduces the effect of Weak Essence such that the SK can both scan and kill once on the subsequent night.

PROTAGONIST BRANCH NOTE: If Bug Out conditions are only fulfilled by LYLO, Protagonist Branch will not unlock.

Original Rand for the game before I screwed up prerand notices, semi-outing Tim.The original rand may have been a fated win for Mafia, with Tim designated as Godfather. A N0 peek on Tim in that rand might have instawon Mafia the game. On the second rand Winston actually rolled SK, but he rejected a PR when asked so I made him VT and reranded just the SK, which came up Borg/Argon.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

6. Timsup2nothin (Tim/Tims/Timmo/Jimmy Timmel) [Godfather]
5. Winston Hughes (Winston/WH/McGinty) [Framer]
3. Raskolnikov (Rask) [Goon]

9. Lewwyn (Lew) [Detective]
13. Laurentus (Laur) [Technician]

1. c4e5g3d5 (c4) [Serial Killer]

8. Ibn-Khaldun (IK)
14. El-Ahrairah (El/El-A)
10. BorgPicard (Borg/Picard/LA/Argon)
7. Garden Gnome (Gnome/GG)
16. pzelda (Zelda/Capage/Cap)
12. Csargo (Csar)
11. Nanook (Nook)
15. Vroendal (Vro)
17. CutePanda (Panda/CP)
2. hollowkat (hollow/HK)
4. Dolby (Dolbster/Dolb)

Potential expanded versions of the game
(18er): + Hobo
(19er): +1 VT; + Hobo; Mafia window for initiative-bonus NK from SK death increased from N3 to N4


If the Mafia vs. SK was intended to be like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8mTC-Xtqqo

Quote:

---

NINGEN-DO

---

Then Scum vs. Hobo could have been like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BejeVQUBxAk

Host Diary

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Pregame, Tim worried about flavor differences around the alien Third Party, and how it could confirm or disconfirm alignment. In fact no Town role started with any information about the Alien Werewolf, so spouting off about it in-thread D1 would be a great way for Mafia to draw a kill. Perfect Information Syndrome can have downsides!

Mafia: "How do you do fellow townies, catch any aliens about lately?"
Town: :confused:
Alien: :wacky:


So, SK Argon/BorgPicard decided right off the bat to paranoia-peek Tim N0, admittedly a risk in metagaming the playlist. I wonder if I will regret having larded up the SK with the N0 peek in order to facilitate this playthrough. (Though in the original rand, where Tim was Godfather, this peek could have singlehandedly won Mafia the game!)

More concern among Mafia about not having any cover or access to the vanilla role PM. I didn't anticipate angst over all of two sentences, but to be fair my rules at the time allowed paraphrasing flavor, such that some first-comers might be able to soft Marine by using such phrases as "return a hero" or "steely-eyed." The probability of forcing a mass claim was nil though, as there is too little VT verbiage to support more than a couple of presentations. At any rate, most players here might either overlook a soft attempt or become suspicious at a more overt appeal to flavor. And it is rather welcome, in my biased eyes, for the so-called informed minority to feel anxious over ignorance of just how little the majority knows.

In the end I updated the game rules by conforming to Zack's: "Don't reference role PMs or the wording of their flavor in the thread" and informing Mafia chat, "Here is another thing you know about Marines: Their goals are fairly simple and are represented well in the thread, as I quoted earlier here." Tangentially, I also realized that I should spell out, "Night begins when Twilight ends. Do not post in the thread overnight."

Given the level of extra explanation I had to offer Zelda about his cop role, I should have just skipped the headgames and called the Neighbors masons outright. But I really want the players to figure things out for themselves.

Winston Hughes, shortly before SOD1, PMed me 30 Rock Paper Scissors orders. In fact I had always intended the RPS tie-resolution system to be biased against people who weren't present at EOD - lack of orders defaults moves to Rock - but taking orders in advance also gives non- American time zones a better chance, should they take advantage of the opening. Ultimately my RPS tiebreaking system is RNG with a veneer of interactivity. If players properly read the rules, then they will realize that active players will rarely - or never - lose in ties, so wagons need to be calibrated more deliberately for effect.

------------------- Round 1

Epic Post #1: Rask: "I have travelled across the galaxy to vote my friends hollowkatt, but sadly Csargo randed woof."

Epic Post #2: Argon: "I think the wolves will kill you first for me claiming to have cop checked you as a Mason."
"I really don't have much to go on other than we don't need to worry about Tim. My cop check on him has shown me that he will be mechanically a no factor."
-- So Argon is wilding as SK

Epic Post #3: Zelda: "It looks like there's a wolf in csargo/rask"

For the first day, the posting rate hearkened back to the old Gameroom. I believe the slow launch may be associated with my decision to impose a full-day cap without EOD lift; this probably scared people into conserving their posts for later, with the side effect of dampening activity throughout the day. Whether or not the objective includes restraining hectic EODs (compared to frontloaded activity), there's clearly an interaction between present momentum and future expectations. If rerunning the game I might just set a standard, lifted, postcap of 100. Nevertheless, I did promise low volume, and low volume is not a problem as long as it's steady and everyone is participating (which was a difficulty D1). IMO the sweet spot for this type/size of game is ~25 posts an hour.

Epic Post #4: Argon: "It is nice being town cop so I can be certain of my reads. So I can assure everyone don't worry about Tim."
Jesus Christ, this is pretty much the entirety of Argon's output so far. He's basically breadcrumbing SK to the Mafia, especially for after his presumptive kill on Tim tonight. Big dick energy like he's got unlimited bulletproof, I guess. Maybe he hopes the Mafia will hit him N2 and out themselves pushing him D3 and he can clean up that night.

Epic Post #5: Argon: "I am town cop. Every night I get to choose a target and if they are mafia the message tells me. I trust the great messenger to tell the truth. So I get 100% certainty that my target is good or bad. That is why I am so confident. I get mechanic clearance unlike the the other town members who have to do things like meta reads or vote analysis."
Holy fucking shit. This is the serial killer, folks. Kill-seeking is one thing, but you he was already making a fantastic effort at that without insistently hardclaiming cop Day 1. On the other hand, Argon's play could be sheer genius if both the Town Detective and the Mafia Framer target him tonight - unbeknownst to the Serial Killer, when those conditions are met the Detective scans them town. On the other hand, if the real town cop gets pissed enough at Argon he might just push him, leading Argon to mistake him for Mafia and kill him. Habanero spicy, just please don't get ousted immediately.

Lack of activity in Neighbors chat makes me sad. I should have just made Detective and Technician masons and told them to work together.

Epic Post #6: Argon: "I feel like with Tim that if he survived n1 and n2 then we should be worried about them, but I don't think that will be the case."

Monty: Your role is the centerpiece of the game. Please don't hardclaim alien or third party.
Argon: Sounds like I can hardclaim cop on my N0 mafia peek. When Mafia and SK are hunting each other. In a game with a real cop.

Epic Post #7: Hollow: "probably the right thing is let [Argon] do whatever he's interested in doing and trust that he isn't going to spew you"
I just hope it works out.

I decide to lift all postcaps after D1 because (1) they probably aren't necessary, and (2) I want to observe what, if any, effect there is on volume. Also, I wonder if despite the lack of complaint the 8 PM ET EOD wasn't falling on the late side for too many players. I could change it to 7 PM.

One flaw of Twilight chat is that it's - see above - biased toward those who can be present around EOD. A better alternative might just be capped night chat, say 5 or 10 posts.

Epic Post #8: Argon: "Mainly because [Tim] is mafia."
This is the most open anti-wolfing I've ever seen in my Mafia career if Argon kills Tim tonight.

Epic Post #9: Hollow: "Something about Borg is giving me bad feels beyond the normal "this is LA doing LA things" I usually have when he posts."

Epic Post #10: Argon: "Okay then Tim your date is sealed."

Epic Post #11: Argon: "Oh yeah by the way I actually did n0 check you Tim. Just be aware of that."
Jesus Christ again, this was posted at the last second of Twilight. Argon is shaping up to be a true monster.

I wonder if Argon thinks Dolby or Panda are scum?

Round 1 Twilight is over and not a single person has mentioned or hinted at the third party. Awesome. Just as planned. :sneaky:

So at EOD1, the Mafia are doing almost as well as they could possibly be. It's a dream scenario for any team. Unfortunately for them, the SK is on Tim's trail... The game state might actually be shaping up the way I hoped it would, with Mafia overmatching Town and SK overmatching Mafia.

roflroflmao Tim wants to frame Argon/Borg N1 and forever. Now let's see how the Detective, Zelda, moves. On the other hand...

Epic Post #12: Tim (scumchat): "If we had a janitored kill I would slaughter Argon so fast his head would pop off like a helmet in a Madden game!!!"

Uhoh, Lewwyn the Technician thinks his Detective Neighbor Zelda is scum and wants to come at him. I should have just Masoned them. Well, if this isn't anxiety-driven...

Zelda has to scan Argon, I assume - right? As the Detective he must feel some compulsion to check someone repeatedly hardclaiming seer D1, someone who was his scum-partner just a few weeks ago. But surprisingly Zelda's prospects are Winston, Gnome, or El-A. Well, the next problem would be gaining Lewwyn's cooepration. Ultimately however, Zelda never got around to discussing his role with Lewwyn, and had to act on his own, scanning Winston. The result will be accurate, incidentally.

Borg kills Tim, achieves Prime Transformation. I'm excited to put this writeup together. Now, Mafia can easily recover here. Csargo and Vro did very well D1, and IMO it's difficult for Tim's flip to connect to either of them until endgame. By the same token, I have no indication that Argon has discerned the team composition. Well, N2 will tell.

------------------- Round 2

Without Tim, the Mafia haven't figured out that Argon is the SK. Very slow start to D2, but it may be for the best as I realized that for a few hours I had referred to the Infiltrator by their PR (Framer) in the N1 writeup fluff. Thankfully, most people probably didn't even see that, including Zelda (Detective) specifically.

Epic Post #13: Winston: "Not so much being interested in mechanics (that's not in my meta in any direction), as having actually read the host's posts and feeling like nobody else had."

Epic Post #14: Winston: "sk rand = the temptation of total joy"

Town has trouble coalescing around any proper scumreads, but Vroendal is getting some incidental pressure after Zelda seemingly spotted him: "What exactly makes you townlean vroe in that post? The way he scumread you for fairly good reasons or the way he compared himself to el? I think the former is a good list to sr someone, but it might be too focused on picturing you as scum, while being very articulate (in direct contrast to the second part of the post, where Vroe claimed that he couldn't analyze that early) to be a town post. Like my impression is that earl scumreads coming from town are way more chaotic than cleanly posting all reasons for a sr without a hint of doubt."

Epic Post #14: Dolby: "Here's a bone: I think that LA and [REDACTED] both have heightened SK potential"

I'm surprised Zelda and Lewwyn are so complacent, to the point of never even commenting on it, about Argon hardclaiming cop all game for the majority of his ISO.

Epic Post #15: Laurentus TRing Csargo and SRing c4, without knowing who died overnight, on the basis of Tim's reads.

Epic Post #16: El-Ahrairah: "How can you know that Tim is dead, but not C4? They were announced in the same post!"

Epic Post #17: Laurentus outing Csargo for inconsistency.

Epic Post #18: Laurentus: "I find it hard to imagine Tim tolerating such lazy scum."

Epic Post #19: Winston: "There's something in the write-ups that at least hints at the possibility that the sk benefits in some way from killing scum."

Epic Post #20: Winston: "The truth is, though, most serial killers don't high-post. It's just that if you're someone like me, who loves hunting scum but also likes being evil, there is a malevolent joy in playing an sk that cannot be found in any other role."

Epic Post #21: Laurentus: "Please tell me it's not in the flavour. I usually tend to skim that, lol."

As Day 2 ends, the leading townies have tended to be wrong about the entire thrust of their reads, except where shading Vro, Csargo, and Argon. Zelda and IK are the only ones really on the ball, for having outed Vro.

Days in this game seem very backloaded for activity, despite the dissociation of caps and EOD (EOD still falls under cap); The last 7 hours of day saw a posting rate of ~45/hour, nearly an order of magnitude higher than the rest of the day.

For N2, an impatient Lewwyn immediately invoked Iron Curtain, blocking the whole game. On second thought, maybe this role really is incentivized to act earlier rather than later, despite my nudges toward the latter. More concretely, N2 Iron Curtain may actually be of benefit to the SK, who was planning to use his two kills on Nanook and Garden Gnome. An extra day phase of deliberation preserves those LHF who kind of shield him, as well as offering an opportunity to ascertain the true Mafia. For their own part, N2 is when the Mafia began seriously considering attacking Argon - another respite for the SK, though the town PRs Zelda and Lewwyn were also top candidates for NK. Ultimately:

Epic Post #21: Mafiachat Csargo: "LA has a decent shot of being sk or detective imo, so that seems like a really good nk."

Zelda wants to soloscan his Neighbor Lewwyn tonight, seemingly ignoring that the reliability of the result would be a coin flip. Maybe the Iron Curtain tonight will offer his fresh opportunity to rethink and collaborate. It would be sad if mistrust effectively left the town cop useless ITG. Ideally the Detective needs to be proactive. To that end, one modification I could have introduced would be to inform the Detective when the partner's end of the scan isn't held up (to increase accountability). In other news, Zelda is now at Csargo-SK and Vro-scum, which is at least close to solving the game.

At this rate, Argon's killing nights (barring bullseyes N3) of N3 and N5 will decide the game (assume no overlap between Mafia and SK kills):
D3 - 13
N3 - 12
D4 - 9
N4 - 8
D5 - 7
N5 - 6
D6 - 3
If he survives to D6 against only 1 maf, he auto-wins as long as he retains a BP vest. It's quite plausible that Argon could avoid two or three NKs in a row, because the Town PRs will wind up claiming and Mafs will have to target them instead. So, in other words, Argon need only survive three more day phases, while hitting a maf with one of his 4 shots (or at least guiding one to the ouster).

Ironically, Argon's WIFOM strategy of trying to attract Mafia attention - which is counterable in the form of Mafia strongman - may be both preempted and reinforced by the Town PRs. At least I am successful in designing a game in which each faction can dramatically surprise the next.

On the other hand, it would also have been nice to see Mafia attack Argon and then be forced by exigency on future notes to carefully deliberate between finish him off (thus expending two factional kills and Godfather PR) or else hunt for townclear or PRs at night while trying to oust Argon by day.

On further consideration, I may have made it too easy for Mafia to beat the SK's two BPs; if the Detective is dead and flipped by the time Mafia have to make a choice, then giving up anti-cop abilities like Framer or Godfather really becomes costless. Yet I wouldn't like to simply remove the strongman unlock in the case of town cop being dead. Maybe I could simply boost the incentives to eliminate by day, by awarding Mafia not just one single linked day-kill but a separate daykill to each linked (voting) mafia.

This is going to be the easiest writeup of the game... Good luck avoiding reading this one!

------------------- Round 3

Out of the gate Argon indisputably confirms himself as non-vanilla, openly talking to Mafia.

I would definitely need to think more about how to incentivize cooperation between the town Neighbors without Masoning them, and how to get Technicians to deploy their RB more toward N3/4 on average. I mean, obviously, here part of the idea was that the Town PRs would quickly form an MIB tag-team and the Technician would feel committed to assisting with cop checks for a while. But there was always great mistrust and lack of communication between Lewwyn and Zelda.

Zelda confidently sharing his town scan on WH, without mentioning that it might not be reliable (though it was in this instance).

How did GG attract such universal suss?

Sorry Winston, but the claimed neighbors being the scum is one of the least plausible theories for requiring the scum to just out themselves in the wake of being blocked. Then again, if one could find Argon as SK - not yet approaching consensus - then maybe one could believe the scum are crazy or arrogant beyond human ken...

Interesting speculation about the relationship between Mafia and SK thoughl I considered the design element of just making SK invulnerable at night, but felt I could build into the extant design for a fairer and more fun experience.

If I really wanted this game to be bastard, I would have amplified the SK's Vengeful Ferocity such that it could not even be ousted with less than majority vote (ouster displaced onto 2nd- place candidate).

Epic Post #22: Several of Gnome's doomposts, such as "talk more about my upcoming demise? And my obituary? What do you plan on putting in that? Please be kind. I am inept but sweet.
The scumminess that you see dripping from me is an illusion. A mirage. My death might not bring you the happiness for which you dream.

Gnome voting a claimed Town PR, previously consensus TL, with demonstrable results in writeup, while herself being a consensus suspect, is one of those amusing developments a game can throw at you.

Surprised Mafia won't just outright push Borg as SK, then kill Winston (so no one remaining will be able to guess their factional interest in action).

Epic Post #23: Winston: "If you were sk, gg, who would you have killed n1?" Gnome: "Probably you"
:very cool:

Lewwyn evidently does not understand the conditions of Zelda's role, or maybe Zelda didn't convey them clearly. Zelda's results are not enhanced when another player targets the same target as Zelda with their own role; the other player, the collaborator, has to submit the same *scan* orders as Zelda.

I clarified the Detective role to Zelda - on the point of his Overmatched passive and the need for collaboration in scans - part of the failure of expected networking in the Neighborhood appears to fall on the cop's misunderstanding of the mechanics - and realized that I could also allow a special case in which the Detective and Serial Killer scan the same person, whether independently or (theoretically) as a network.

Mafia can win this, where Town radically mistrust each other, the SK has chosen to play self- outing, and the SK probably can't ascertain their identity to shoot in time.

5 hours before EOD3 and only the scum have not voted yet. lol Scum have really hung back from the voting this game.

Winston, the Visorslash vote was recorded because I didn't say you can't vote for someone outside the game (it wouldn't count toward any ouster though), whereas I specified in the rules that No Lim or Sleep was deprecated.

Epic Post #24: Hollow: "SK shoot Nanook plx"
Heh, Argon wanted to do just that N2. He really shouldn't shoot there if he wants to win though.

Gnome forgot about the default RPS settings for inactive players (R-R-R) and got herself tied in the tiebreaker, and lost the subsequent coin toss. Really she should have won, as the whole point of the RPS tibreaker mechanism is for the tied players to know that they can always beat inactive players, and for the rest of the players to know this as well, thus influencing their voting behavior in the first place.

I cut Twilight D3 by 10 minutes and I honestly shouldn't have. Still, it probably only preempted a couple of comments.

The SK got his reprieve N2, and it looks like the Mafia are forced into attacking within the claimed town PRs, but he nevertheless insists on holding steady on flipping the secondary wagons (Nanook and Panda). While this is great for Town, it is quite possibly game-ending for the SK, who has less ouster-cover and whose Mafia prey become more vulnerable. In fact, I predict Vroendal gets ousted tomorrow. Argon can still win if he survives D4 and D5, but his absolute last chance is N5. If he doesn't properly reconsider targets by then he just loses.

Vroendal wants to kill claimed RB Lewwyn because he expects the SK to kill claimed cop Zelda, though he would be wrong. Vro is unsure what happens if they Frame the SK, and the answer is nothing in particular, unless someone is scanning them simultaneously, in which case they scan town. Final orders were to kill Lewwyn - understandable - and frame HK - less understandable. If you think HK is SK, why frame him, shouldn't he scan red anyway? I wasn't sure if I ought to point this out to Mafia, as it would be a leg up to know this for sure.

Zelda scanned Nanook, again solo. Man, the Neighborhood was just a detriment to town in this run, huh? Maybe Zelda will fare better with active networking N4 now that Lewwyn is about to die. Anyway, Nanook scanned scum, which is hilarious alongside Nanook's death and reveal as town.

I've been forced the consider, how will the game end if Argon and mafia survive past LYLO (i.e. all townies are dead)? Since Argon can't kill N6 by standard rules (assuming he doesn't kill last mafia N5), the game should either end in draw or SK death/defeat. If Argon retains both BPs - in other words has never been attacked - then he should be strong enough to force a draw with either one or two mafia. If he has already been attacked at least once, he should die, though I kind of want to force a draw nevertheless if it's just him and 1 mafia.

------------------- Round 4

smh people still think there's a vig

Argon makes the Post of the Game: "That doesn't seem like town vigi flavor"

Re: Speculation about whether Nanook or Panda was killed by Mafia or vig, I mean, it's all under the single heading of a big monster, narratively in the scope of a single event...

Epic Post #25: Zelda: "Overall I am at Vroe>Csargo>Dolby with Winston only coming in the poe if Vroe is scum as a direct association. Borg prolly always 3p/vig here. Unless it's Csargo."
Zelda solving the game.

Epic Post #26: Winston: "i recall something in flavour about the [SK] gaining power from consuming bionic corpses could be the extra kill was gained from the tim kill?"
"The sk wants to chop town and kill scum. Scum want to chop the sk."


Epic Post #27: Winston: "dream f3 = hk/dolby/argon with both scum and sk still in play"

Epic Post #28: Hollow: "I just don't think wolf LA plays this game this way. SK LA might"

Laurentus fakeclaims SK to get info from Vroendal, but comes to the wrong conclusion (TRing him)! I'm not sure I can even reverse-engineer the reasoning, since the identity of Zelda's scan targets is in principle distinct from Zelda's methodology.

Epic Post #29: Winston: "This is an excellent game. No idea what the fuck's going on. Probably going to lose. Hugely enjoyable."

At night, Mafia remain completely unsure of what to do, so they Frame Dolby - though they believe Dolby has already been scanned - and kill Zelda (the claimed cop). Borg scans Laurentus and Zelda scans Csargo!!!! Hopefully he manages to organize a network with Laurentus just in time, because otherwise - I preflipped coins - his soloscan will produce the opposite result, which would have been reported publicly (Csargo = Town) upon Zelda's death that night.

Gosh, 3 hours from orders lock and Zelda is still solo on Csargo (i.e. deathscan: Csargo = Town). Now Csargo has changed kill order to HK however. This gives Town a last chance if Zelda/Laurentus can't get it together on Csargo. That is, it gives Town a chance to oust Csargo D5, or SK a shot at Csargo N5. If Csargo dies before D6 then Zelda's N6 can be Oracled if he dies then, which ideally would produce a more accurate result.

Vroendal changed the kill back to Zelda and it's settled. Town is fucked.

I mean, come on, Nanook scanned scum the same night he flipped town, how does that not scare you shitless about the reliability of solo scans?

------------------- Round 5

Zelda death = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_PrZ-J7D3k

The second Post of the Game, by Csargo in scumchat: "I am 1000% sure people will be angry when this is over Monty."

Well, there is some hope for town: Borg gets ousted, vengeful-kills scum, remaining scum kills 2 townies, and the game ends with a classic F3 LYLO.

Epic Post #30: Argon: "With the lack of SK kills, I am assuming rb or maybe a holster. If it was rb, I am assuming by mafia and that means mafia knows who it is. If it is holster then they don't, and are probably going to be trying to kill them, because if flavor holds out, sk wins in a 1v1v1. If it was a sk holster, thanks it has allowed for mech clears of two townies."
Argon once again outing himself through PIS.

Epic Post #31: Winston: "This has reminded me of a fleeting thought I had a few days back, but didn't linger on at the time...
From the start, the scum knew there was a third party. It wasn't clear until n1 that the 3P was scum-hostile, iirc. But the image of the spider-eyed, toothy, wolfy thing being at the top of both sign-ups and game thread doesn't exactly suggest a neutral survivor role, to my eyes at least. It doesn't seem a major leap to think the scum were concerned about getting killed by the 3P. Indeed, it might explain why Tim didn't spam up the thread in his usual manner (which, full disclosure, I'm a little sad about because Tim in full-flow is a thing of beauty). And if they also had reason to suspect the existence of some kind of town investigative power (which is hardly unlikely even if they didn't have any inside knowledge), then Tim being something of an investigation magnet (takes one to know one) there would seem good reason for Tim's buddies to preemptively distance themselves."

This day will be legendary for the volume of Argon's fakeclaims. He's perhaps the only person who sees through Laurentus' shield on Vroendal though. IME being truthful as 3P is the best policy for placating town.

Winston's praise of my hosting becomes embarrassing as I know what's really happening.

Epic Post #32: Vroendal remembering that Mafia kills are not assigned.

Epic Post #33: Winston: "This game is now 19% of my total posts at the org, which after 11+ years and ~30 games is pretty insane."

Epic Post #34: Winston: "Given the complexity of the other power roles, and the fine balance of the whole situation, does Monty ever just plop a town tracker in this game? It's so crass and uninteresting."
Me feeling bad for giving Mafia crass and uninteresting abilities.

Epic Post #35: Laurentus: "Fuck this game. :wall: :dizzy2: :laugh4: "

Epic Post #36: Winston: "Hardest days to fake are the first and the last. Paranoia: unless you've worked the mechanics to make yourself seem clear Sanity: :tnt:"

Epic Post #37: Winston: "Csar with the wolfy pop-in. :sweatdrop: "
Winston struggled at times with the supposed clears on Vroendal and Csargo. No one really commented - not even Laurentus IIRC - that Csargo continued to SR Vroendal from D3/4 to the end without comment, which really was but stark distancing.

Epic Post #38: Winston: "You keep telling Laurentus what to do. That's not townie. You should be telling me what to do[...] The difference between us is that I have no interest in trying to convince you of anything, because I know you're a villain. You're acting as if I'm someone who might yet be won over[...] Your use of 'right?' and 'yeah?' betrays the fact that you've still got a mind to try and convince me. To be brutal about it, I dgaf what you think about the gamestate. Because I know you're a villain."

Winston put HK in something of a Catch-22 Day 5, where he demanded HK try to convince him of his towniness, while using those attempts to denounce HK's struggle against a foregone conclusion.
There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a scummy mind. HK was towny and could be spared. All he had to do was ask Winston; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be towny and would have to hang.

Epic Post #39: Exchange of quips between Winston and HK, #2024-8

Epic Post #40: Winston: "I think the other game where I hardclaimed miller might actually have been mountainous. :creep: "


Borg truly makes an irrevocable claim when he reveals his vengeful ouster passive, one of the key SK traits that the Mafia are explicitly informed of. Yet Vroendal's reaction this: "I kinda believe BP's claim, maybe, it's a weird one for sure. I don't mind voting for him by EoD personally, but I might switch to Dolby/HK if Lau switches. I think it's very doubtful BP's the SK at this point. Same with Winston. Lau is never the SK." Incredible to watch Mafia try to convince town not to oust outed SK. But then Csargo returns with wisdom in the chat, and Argon finally no-rescind hardclaims SK anyway.

Borg correctly tries to play off his vengeful to convince Town to maximize the probability of saving itself from Mafia, but his opaque twist on the truth, combined with all the other claims up to this point, creates a Boy Who Cried SK effect that works, on paper, only in Mafia's favor.

Epic Post #41: Laurentus: "Like, it's really best not even to think of LA's claims too hard, even, because I gave myself a moment of abject terror when I considered how him not seemingly realising that scum didn't have assigned roles could be a sign that points to being the SK. Actually, fuck it, I'm in abject terror mode again now."
Borg might actually be SK like he's always insisted? You don't say.

Epic Post #42: Laurentus: "The only reason I can think of for why the derp wouldn't work is if Vro just genuinely didn't get involved much with the decision to kill Lewwyn. Or if Lewwyn was killed for completely unrelated reasons, like just being the most unlynchable townie. Oh, god, that's actually plausible, innit? [...] But where is the WIFOM? We're at LYLO and you [Vroendal] have been remarkably not-paranoid."
More good tinfoil from Laur. Vroendal lolcatting as top town, along with Csargo dip & blending as locked town, are good pings to have here.

Epic Post #43: "Good news, Vro, given your town lean on Panda, I have come to the conclusion that you are definitely not the SK. :sweatdrop: "


Winston tore down Argon's former tracker claim, but doesn't account for the fact that Mafia should be less likely to slip with a fake role that doesn't account for facts contained in the Mafia role PM.

Borg finally no-rescind hardclaims SK, but doesn't make a solid case for how. More transparency with his language and night actions might help; spinning a fake or twisted story is usually a harder sell than the truth.

Epic Post #44: Argon: "I am screwed by the game state. I honestly don't see a way I can win"

Epic Post #45: Laurentus: "Remind me to buy you [Borg] a beer if this bullshit turns out to be true, lmao."

Really Argon had this game in the bag after N2, but three factors have sunk his chances now, with the latter perhaps being the most decisive:

1. Constantly revealing himself to the enemy
1.a. Revealing information that was printed about the SK in the Mafia role card.
2. Poor NK choices N3
3. Laurentus and Zelda inadvertently misclearing Csargo.

It's a shame, because he would definitely have killed Vroendal tonight, for an action-packed F4/F3 (depending on Mafia's shot, with F3 being a drawn-out instawin for SK). Csargo getting false-cleared in this instance wouldn't have mattered too much, since the opposite - Csargo being outed - would have removed him from SK's kill list regardless.

Epic Post #46: Apparently the Nanook and Panda kills were solely for their votes on Dolby??! Then the SK REALLY should have shot Laurentus N3.

Ultimately, Borg looks to be getting ousted with more townies sussing him for mafia than for SK, despite having himself hardclaimed SK. Amazing.

Epic Post #47: Dolby: "I'm more motivated to hope that the world isn't personally embarassing (LA actually SK, HK scum, I clowned myself on Vroe rather than Winston being falsecleared)"

Epic Post #48: Argon: "You know what screw it, enjoy your win mafia. Town has decided to throw so gg[...] Vote: Dolby You treacherous dog. I killed all those people on your wagon and this is how you treat me? [...] I did it for you Dolby, also to make you my patsy, but mostly for you."

Epic Post #49: Argon: "It wasn't a town role that is part of my sk package. Also I do not see how people are ignoring Vro knowing that the mafia's kills are factional and me the supposed mafia not knowing that."

Epic Post #50: Laurentus: "waves Ye shoulda killed me"

Dolby piling onto Borg's wagon probably just doomed Town, because it reduces the odds of Vengeful Ferocity hitting Csargo or Vroendal. Without that vengeful shot on Mafia, town instaloses. Laurent's vote on Vro is a reversal that Vro may come to regret. And... then he switched back, forgetting that Maf and SK can't win together.

I don't understand the argument that the wagon has to be heavy because the SK and Mafia would work together to oust town otherwise; Mafia would love to oust SK (even without knowing they get bonuses for doing so)!



Epic Post #51: Dolby: "csar isn't literally always good since percentage wasn't revealed. but he's like 95% good"
Actually... that sounds about right. Just horrible game-ending luck for Town (and really for the SK as well).

Day ends with self-aware interactions between Argon and Vroendal that are about to prove very poetic.

So the wagon comes in with 5 votes. Borg dies, will flip SK, and will take down Vroendal (the Godfather and his top suspect) with him, poetically. Vengeful poetry! With 5 on the wagon there was a 40% chance of this (though at least mafs get a daykill out of it). I'm sure the reveal will hit quite hard.

Because this writeup will take so long, and because I don't want to be rushed, I nixed Twilight. I had always planned to have unrestricted private comms for LYLO, as a nod to my SK game (see "Inspirations"), and had in fact forgotten to apply it at the beginning of D5.

Massive writeup incoming, and yet much less than I planned. But it was taking too long. lol people gonna hate this.

Reading the SK role card again, I think I would remove the D3 restriction to Triple Prime/Doomsday, so that the SK could win as early as D3 rather than D6. For that kind of rare play it's worth it; this here was a standard playthrough and it's ending D6, because of the Technician's intervention.

Post of the Game #3: Dolby: "I think mafia lost purely because of a bad rand"
I'm so, so, sorry.
Yeah, I should have just GRATUITOUSLY specified the possibilities in Detective's PM to put them on notice.

Also, I should have restricted private comms to the Org PM system. I have once against underestimated IM systems (i.e. Discord).
https://discord.com/channels/8389691...69152931627050

To those who dislike the random elements in the design, I would say that the randomness is tempered by player action (except in the case of the N0, fair enough, but that was just to juice the playthrough and shouldn't appear schematically). In the case of Vengeful Ferocity, the risk starts being known to Mafia (and is manageable by behavior), then briefly increases in danger unknown to anyone but SK, and finally disappears. I suppose I would be fine allowing the SK to choose their target though (and clearly Borg would have chosen Vroendal if he could have, so it works out for us), with the caveat that randomness would have to be incorporated in the case of SK being unavailable in time or not selecting any target. For tiebreakers, the randomness can be eliminated by the participation of tied players. For the cop scan, I mean, the falsified deathscan (itself unframeable!) is an extremely rare event structurally, and is designed that way precisely to discourage the behavior - soloscanning - that could produce it... I could also see an argument for restricting public reporting of false outcomes to Godfather scans only, so that it's at least dependent on a specific role drawing cop's attention (as with Framing).

I definitely should have disallowed Discord tonight; smh at all the extra fruitless work I'm allowing Dolby to do.

In a New Game+ version of this setup I might try to make the Mafia PRs as unique and flashy as the SK and Town PRs (though hard to do while retaining the balance of the latter).


------------------- Round 6

Dolby resists hammering.

Mechanical Discussion

Two of the 'holy grails' in Mafia design are:

1. Perfect, extensible, Rock-Paper-Scissors style multiball structural balance of all against all, especially the trifecta of Town-Mafia-Third Party.
2. Balanced and inclusive mass night action (networking) in a typical-sized game.

But the above are not what this game setup was addressing. Though in contact with higher philosophies my immediate aims were more basic.

The schema of the game was SK > Mafia > Townies, sometimes in terms of information but mostly in terms of raw power. I wanted Town and Mafia alike to feel like they were being hunted by a terrifying monster, anxiety-inducing but thrilling. More the quiet, creeping anxiety that follows you around all day, not the manic, desperate anxiety of another arena.

(Note: This was not a networking game, I just chose to balance out Town PRs with reliance on my familiarity with networking.)

I wanted to implement a game archetype wherein the Third Party and the Town are both at war with the Mafia, but one's gain is the other's loss. Rampage was about Mafia racing to eliminate Town PRs and the SK, while Town needed to find Mafia before the SK did, whereas the SK's progression depended on keeping Town from ousting its Mafia MacGuffins. Put another way, the core design philosophy is of escalating SK power and a race between SK and Town to eliminate Mafia. Town needs Mafia to die during day, and SK needs to kill them at night (though Town don't realize the predicament at first). Both Town and SK are aided by investigatives, but Mafia resist with disinformative roles.

To that end, the SK was penalized for killing townies instead of Mafia, but was compensated with tools to sniff out Mafia. In parallel, the Town had a limited detective to identify opponents (thereby potentially depriving the SK of fuel), as well as a powerful roleblocker who could sacrifice the Detective's scan to stop all killing that night (valuable when there could readily come a night with 3 kills. For their part, the Mafia's PRs were specialized in negating or subverting investigative attention from either of their opposing factions.

Ideally, SK gets 1-2 Mafia in most iterations of this setup and can hope to achieve a total victory with great play, though as usual the solo faction has a harder time of it than others. Town and Mafia should have roughly equal chances of prevailing, as far as I can game out.

IMO making the town PRs half-lover, half-mason (effectively), helped balance them against each other and between factions by making outcomes more dependent on behavior. Mutual dependence is a double-edged sword, though naturally there must be even cleverer ways to implement this philosophy.

If I haven't noted it elsewhere, it is very possible to clown this setup and Neighbor the Detective with Mafia goon or Godfather, thus awarding Mafia a huge edge over Town while offering a tool to hunt the SK with. But in that case the Technician and the SK would both need to be buffed. In practice the Detective also has a chance of falling in with the SK or Mafia while searching for a partner if/when Technician dies, and both SK and Mafia theoretically have an incentive to subvert the town cop into locating their enemies.

It must also be noted, Town needs these structural PRs because in a lot of iterations a lot of townies get massacred very fast. Not even the most sedate playthrough affords town 4 MLs (vs. 3 Mafia) following lack of any scum deaths for 4 straight rounds; in such a game D4 would already be LYLO (from Town's perspective) because 3+2+1+2 = 8/13 townies already dead vs. 3 maf and 1 SK. Indeed, Town would still lose that D4 unless they oust Mafia but not SK, because if Mafia gain a vig shot from ousting SK they can force parity. And even if Town do oust Mafia instead of SK on this day, Town will still lose unless N4 SK and Maf hit each other instead of town AND SK is caught D5 without vengeful. Admittedly there is also a lucky-break scenario there where SK is ousted D4 but vengeful-kills a maf for a D5 that's either 4-2 or 3-2. But realistically if only townies keep dying the make-or-break day is almost certainly D3, which is why TBH Town could have got away with stronger PRs than I gave them.

In the actual event, D4 was the make-or-break day for Town, both because Tim died N1 and because of the Technician's effect. While I properly announced D5 as LYLO here, in reality Town usually loses that LYLO unless and only unless scums hit each other in the right combination (e.g. Mafia and SK killing each other, or SK vengeful killing Mafia - as we saw).

Besides pure balance, I kept a lot of information hidden or conditional for the sake of surprise and player anxiety, and because I don't expect this setup (as opposed to its concepts and components) to be recycled: it was a one-off, though in theory it can be replayed. Potential tweaks to a New Game+ are mentioned here and there throughout Postgame content.

A game like this would be more worthwhile in the hands of someone with more literary and design creativity. Short of infinitely-replayable rock-paper-scissors balancing, it's conceivable that a popular new game mode would feature faction-level rewards or enhancements for successfully eliminating opponents, in a sort of arms race. One element that is ready for plug-and-play implementation is the chained cop, or chained PRs in general. The chaining being, as in Rampage, a requirement to recruit another player to participate in the role action to achieve full and proper effect. Call it "low-networking."

So how did this specific setup really come about, thematically?

Inspirations

I played in 3 formative games in Fall 2011.

(Hi @Lewwyn! :ave:)

(Warning: Prattle ahead.)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Capo IV taught me about networking, or players collaborating at night to complete actions or even to form emergent factions. I was insignificant in Capo, dying early (D6/22); Capo was very much Pizza's show, and he was formally crowned the absolute winner over more than 100 players, Capo di Tutti Capi, by the rules of the setup.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Askthepizzaguy

It was I who asked for you to be lynched. Nothing personal, it's just business. :smoking:

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Askthepizzaguy

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

Villains only die in the end.

But all villains die.

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This ain't one of your Hollywood movies, Monty. Sometimes, when the chips are down, and the heroes give it their all....

they still die and evil wins. :evil:

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Originally Posted by Askthepizzaguy

You know, I took so many folks to the end with me, hand in hand, doing everything I could do for the team to succeed. But it is not the Care Bears hour ad infinitum, where everyone lives happily ever after; in order for the team to win, more people had to join it, or more people had to die.

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Originally Posted by Askthepizzaguy

I used the mechanics available to me in the game to screw over a hundred people, yes.

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Cooling down from Capo, I randed Serial Killer in the Org's next game, Andres' The Island - which remains my only SK role to date. My role carried the (imbalanced) advantage of unlimited bulletproof, so I had the double motivation to hunt Mafia of paranoia about being attacked and subsequently cased by them, and simple virile bloodlust against them. I shot about at the two mafiosi from start to finish, with no luck until the eve of LYLO (contributing flavor to the host's writeups along the way). With 4 other players remaining on the final night, having deduced the identity of the final mafioso, I could either shoot a townie and win on the spot - 1-1-1 in the final round would award me a parity win - or shoot the scum and try to persuade townies to let me walk out of gratitude. Suffice to say Town won that game.

(Hi @Lewwyn! :ave:)


Finally, in December, I randed a weak VC-scanner in autolycus' Buffy Mafia 2. I had witnessed power being wielded in Capo of course, but Buffy 2 is the game where I first tasted it for myself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sg14jNbBb-8

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

It's a real tragedy, but I archived the PMs from 2011 contemporaneously, and only the second half of the game appears extant in my records, so I can't reconstruct the progression of the first half of the game. Moreover, the host didn't get around to releasing all the night actions and role PMs in post-game. Here's my best rundown from available data:

Starting either N1 or D2, I was feeling pessimistic about the gamestate. I knew there was a lot of behind-the-scenes action in the game and I wanted to see if I could tap into some of it.

So I reached out to the towniest player in private, and revealed myself. I offered to network. Then I reached out again. And again. And again...

(Hi @Lewwyn! :ave:)

By D3 I had assembled at least:

• 2 town doctors
• 1 town doctor/vig
• 1 town roleblocker
• 1 neutral humanity-scanner (Pizza himself)
• 1 hometown-scanner?

Pooling our information and resources, we were expanding the network. By the end of N3 I had identified a further:

• neutral mason pair of a VC-scanner and role-scanner
• neutral Survivor name-scanner
• that scanner's neutral doctor friend
• another town roleblocker

Using leads from all those scanners I gathered, I privately cornered a certain suspicious player and coerced a confession to his being an evil serial killer. Night actions would subsequently confirm his confession, besides locating an additional, neutral, serial killer. I made the evil SK an offer he couldn't refuse: do as I say, and you'll earn relief from the uncharitable mob - or else get flushed. Coincidentally, I tended to extend versions of this offer indiscriminately regardless of alignment...

As the midgame crested I had accumulated a level of power comparable in the annals of Mafia gaming perhaps only to Pizza himself, who just weeks prior had commanded 5 (of 6) doctors and a serial killer of his own, among other implements.

But that was then, and now Pizza the humanity scanner was the D3 oust over multiple scumbags, over my vehement protestations. I just hadn't secured my grip on the day activity yet. That power struggle would continue behind closed doors as well as in the thread...

For a grandiose example of what I already sounded like in-thread:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

Huff. I'm the one who's been having them cleared, helping them achieve their contact goals -

I am the one who has assembled 3 doctors. Am I to be cast away like a rag by these same, now that my usefulness to them is ended?

God shall bend his bow against those who act in unjust manner to their comrades. His punishment flies not too near, nor past the stars, but timed to pay the debt of Justice on the appointed day. :disappointed:

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

Guy,s guys, guys.

Let me say this again: before you go all lone wolf and create headaches for everyone, could you just run things by me first?

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N3, my location scanner was slain, but the evil SK killed mafia - on my orders I believe. With almost all living players incorporated into my network, I began targeting those pissing on the tent from the outside. Morbidly, the network was by now so expansive that new membership came at a premium some could not afford.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

He refuses to say anything. Now, when I know everyone's claims, it is easier to really begin vetting the entire population. A precondition for this is the absence of all unknown elements.

Accordingly, we must act to eliminate unknowns where they exist. By whatever means are left to us.

Fluffy being fluffy, I think he will stubbornly go to his death just to say he confounded me. :shame:

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Originally Posted by thefluffyone93

A'ight, I see how it is.

I just revealed myself to monty.

I can haz unvote?

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

You put me in a hard place here, Fluffy.

Vey iz you, Fluffy. Vey iz you.

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Originally Posted by edse

8 Fluffy: Monmorency, Lewwyn, edse, Ironside, Riedquat, Arjos, atheotes, jht
2 edse: Erebus, CB
2 Arjos: Alsark, Ishmael
1 Montmorency: Fluffy

abstain: BSmith

10 minutes left

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Askthepizzaguy

You know, I took so many folks to the end with me, hand in hand, doing everything I could do for the team to succeed. But it is not the Care Bears hour ad infinitum, where everyone lives happily ever after; in order for the team to win, more people had to join it, or more people had to die.

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It should be noted at this point that the evil SK, as I had learned, was in fact a super-SK, charging his KP with every successful kill. By allowing him to exist unhindered from the moment he was outed, he upgraded from 1 shot per night to 3. And unbeknownst to me, he acquired a BP along the way as well.

Yet on this N4, I delivered him two targets with great satisfaction.

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Originally Posted by BSmith

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

Please clear out Alsark and Seon.

With style.

:bow:

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It shall be done. :bow:

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The second was the last remaining mafia. Hostile towards me in the thread, making claims to me I could confidently reject as lies, he was an obvious choice.

Before he died that night, he made an attempt on my life. Useless. Tasteless. Naturally I was protected. The Mafia thus faded from the scene with a whimper, having left little mark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9KVIfpNG4w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hS57I6swXcc

The first was one of the neutral mason scanners. Always at odds with me in the thread, almost totally recalcitrant as to his night actions, I couldn't help but see him as a liability. So he had to go.

I had him eliminated for his insubordination and churlishness. Yes, I legitimately directed a jacked-up serial killer to body a town-friendly scanner because he challenged my leadership and resisted sharing results. In the process, um, irretrievably trashing his partner's wincon. The surviving mason remained mostly cooperative though, so the lesson is that Stalinism pays? :sweatdrop:

The truth is, though I saved almost every good character worth saving (read on) after I had established my supremacy, my rule was authoritarian, frictious, messy, and inefficient.

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Originally Posted by Capo flashback

Askthepizzaguy nodded. "It's a tough business. You have to kill to stay alive. Gotta leave people behind the moment they start saying things they shouldn't, or making plans that don't include you.

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That D5, we outed and ousted the Cult leader. He had never got a chance to convert anyone, but only by close call - had I or anyone else targeted them before N4, they would have been converted and themselves become contagious nodes to anyone they came in contact with. Phew!

By now there was only one player stubbornly remaining beyond my full control. Besides that thorn, I was beginning to suspect that the only remaining scum in the game were the two serial killers in my employ. (Before and after I confirmed him the neutral SK never managed to successfully kill.) With supreme arrogance I ordered the evil SK to park all his shots - three now - on me as a flex. I assume here I had him blocked as well, not merely relying on my army of doctors, but wow, the gonads.


Nevertheless, for the first time there were no kills at night. The game was in any meaningful sense already over.

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Originally Posted by Askthepizzaguy, Capo IV

That's better. (refers to the writeup wherein there's protection on mister Niklas as promised)


Now listen my townie friends, this game is now in the bag for Ironside, Seon, SisterCoyote, Death is Yonder, and one more makes it for Nightbringer.

I've done my part and risked my own gangsters against your machine-gun toting folks. Kept my word that I'd assist y'all.

With Niklas and Double A on board, we've got the numbers to win the game without executing any of you townsfolk. All you have to do is agree to accept the peace.


You do that, we wrap up this game, NB gets his final protection for the win, and none of you die, even though we control the vote today.

All in favor say aye.

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Thus I felt so confident going into D6 that I requested a special arrangement from the host: I convince everyone to Sleep and the game ends, with Serial Killers leaving alongside the Town. I really thought I could pull it off and achieve a beautiful comity between Town and 3P. Hey, the Serial Killers were leashed, so what was the problem? Ein Reich, ein Town, ein, uh... At first my people saw things my way, but as the day passed without activity the embers of revolt were stoked; no votes appeared, but calls for action increased. My confrontational and paranoid style had kept certain information in my hand, at the cost of lingering mistrust and unease beneath the surface.

My reaction was shameful. Like some Sodomite I hastily offered up the neutral SK to the mob; it was their inclination anyway as the neutral SK had hardclaimed the day before. The evil SK remained under my protection. So at EOD instead of staying the course and trying to end the game peacefully, I and a disgruntled PR placed the sole votes ousting the loyal SK during EOD. There is no explaining or defending it, even if instinctive fear called me to preempt a last-minute snipe from any direction.

By now my good will was wearing thin with the thread. My judgement was subjected to interrogation. One of my roleblockers - the one most responsible in foiling my armistice that day - categorically refused to submit to any more orders, publicly announcing intent to holster from then on. In another inexplicable decision, I shrugged my shoulders and took a break from the thread. The last living threat to Town would supposedly be a problem for D7. I told the SK to holster and called it a night.

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...

It was only halfway through the night that I realized that I had not issued any other orders, the SK was totally unconstrained, and seeing the writing on the wall in the other SK's blood, certain to be on the warpath. You should have seen me scramble.

Ultimately I accepted death as my deserved fate, arranging what doctors I could into a protective chain with each other. The town vig/doc finally unleashed their (fruitless) shot. But I knew that one of my RBs was freezing me out, and the other was unresponsive, the fourth doctor too unreachable on short notice. To dump my info to my trustees was the responsible move; I prepared them for major casualties in the writeup, having done the best I could with the worst I could.

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Originally Posted by Askthepizzaghost

Montmorency represents the evil networking. You can't just stand aside and let this happen! You must kill the evil!

I'm already dead so there's just one evil left. My demon spawn, the Monty who would be Pizza except he's NOT PIZZA!!! Death to the pretender to the throne!

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By sheer luck, there was no reckoning of hubris. The SK avoided me entirely, assuming I would be protected. Two of his shots fizzled against the doctor-chain, while his third hilariously struck the very last living player who remained on the periphery of my network. This particular townie (possibly the only VT in the game) was targeted solely because the SK assumed he must hold importance, for all the time I had spent shouting at/about him. Sucks for him that I got him pointlessly killed, but phew!

We sheepishly turboed the SK D7 and that was the end of the game, the end of the line for the super-SK who had singlehandedly (sometimes at my direction) wiped out all three of the primary Mafia team. Almost all townies and townsiding Third Parties achieved their wincons.

In Pizzian terminology, I sought to learn the power of the Sith in order to better defend the Republic, and almost paid the price of falling to the Dark Side.

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Originally Posted by Frederick Taylor

It is only through enforced standardization of methods, enforced adoption of the best implements and working conditions, and enforced cooperation that this faster work can be assured. And the duty of enforcing the adoption of standards and enforcing this cooperation rests with the management alone... [Networking] has not place for a bird that can sing and won't sing.

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Originally Posted by William Wilson

We are not dealing with horses nor singing birds, but we are dealing with [players] who are part of [the game] and for whose benefit [the game] is organized.

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The TLDR bottom line: I wanted to host a game featuring a super-powerful mafia-killing serial killer and balanced out from there. And I'm self-indulgently sadistic sometimes, but I still strive for the overall experience to be balanced and exciting.

:sweatdrop:
@Dolby @hollowkatt @Csargo
Winston sleepytime

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Originally Posted by Askthepizzaguy

This ain't one of your Hollywood movies, Monty. Sometimes, when the chips are down, and the heroes give it their all....

they still die and evil wins. :evil:

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Hella good game Monty, thank you!! GGWP Csargo, I'm impressed. GGWP fellow townies! Great game with a hilarious ending. I'm not upset at all, this is hilarious

ggs, through sheer luck I have won this game.

Good game and well played to all...thanx Monty for the hosting.

Argon...smh...why you kill me man?

I am insanely dissapointed ugh

I spent 90 minutes deciding if I should switch because HK felt pure at the end and the only thing besides "winston is townier" that I could hold against him was the Vro switch offs

I feel bad because people got screwed over by accident

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

and I want them to get screwed over on purpose!

GG to Csargo for keeping it steady as the ship sank. I hope townies aren't mad over their wasted effort.

If you have time, please read over the postgame materials and offer thoughts on the design or the gamecourse.