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

[Kommodus]

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



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

I liked that one, StigTheCunning

You evil circumventer, you!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Im not really a high profile player...

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

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

[Stig]

Great write-up Kommo

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



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

I liked that one, StigTheCunning

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

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

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

[Andres]

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

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

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

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

[Seamus Fermanagh]

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

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

Now, here's a thought:

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

[Kommodus]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Sasaki Kojiro]

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

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

[Seamus Fermanagh]

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

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

[Sasaki Kojiro]

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

[GeneralHankerchief]

Bah, good game CN.

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

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

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

[Sasaki Kojiro]

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

[Seamus Fermanagh]

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

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

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

[Stig]

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

[pevergreen]

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

[Seamus Fermanagh]

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

[seireikhaan]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Warmaster Horus]

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

And, Seamus...

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

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

[Seamus Fermanagh]

And, Seamus...

I believe Sasaki is the moderator.

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

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

[sapi]

Be an interesting PM to read

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

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

Yours sincerely,
x

/runs

[Kommodus]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[pevergreen]

Sasaki was roleblocked. Everyone thought it was investigated.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

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

[Kommodus]

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

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