The Midgard Saga II [Concluded]

[Tratorix]

Yeah, I think we can say the town didn't do really well this time...

Considering we killed almost as many pro-town roles as the Jotun did, I'd be inclined to agree with you.

[Privateerkev]

Very very well played TC, Sarathos, and LG.

I deserved to get well and truly fooled after the stunt I pulled in Taormina.

I am looking forward to the writeup.

And thank you to Sigurd for running a cool game. And thank you to everyone for making it fun.

And I hope everyone I verbally sparred with in the game knows it was all in good fun.

[Gaius Scribonius Curio]

Very well played Tincow, LG and Sarathos.

Brilliant forgery, Tincow, I genuinely believed that LG was a God, (fantastic acting too).

Thinking about this last night I'd narrowed it down to Ichigo or Tincow, but I was shocked when i checked this this morning.

Very well done.

Edit: And now everyone can see that my instance of Godly caprice had some substance behind it...

[TinCow]

In the beginning, I thought the game was too heavily skewed towards the Jotun because of our 'undercover' role PMs. This was particularly true for mine, since it gave me an instant alibi and a true townie to vouch for me. However, as the game went on I realized this was better balanced than I thought. First, we couldn't kill or challenge Ichigo, which gave us a major hurdle. I was never able to figure out a way to get him lynched and in the end it was resolved to simply reduce the town until the population was low enough for us to be able to lynch him ourselves. Second, there were more pro-town roles than I anticipated. 4 in total with special abilities, including 2 detectives, a combo doctor/role blocker who could protect/block 2 per night PLUS 1 per night even after he was dead, and whatever it was Odin did which thankfully we never had to figure out. Top it off with the Christian 'code' which I still assume actually did mean something even if I was never able to figure it out, and the ability of all 3 Gods to act as vigilantes who were capable of killing Jotun through Holmgang challenges, and I think it was a fair trade off.

IMO, the town lost because it stopped paying attention to usual mafioso behavior and started looking exclusively at role PMs. As the Tyr forgery proved, any role PM can be faked if someone has a couple templates to work from and puts enough effort into it. Here's the fully formatted version I created:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

You are Týr the God of combat and glory. He lost his hand when he bravely placed it in the mouth of the wolf Fenrisúlfr (Fenris) so that he could be bound with the ribbon Gleipnir.

You are a one of the Æsir and are currently hiding amongst the retinues of the kings at Althing. You do not know who your fellows Æsir are. One of the traits of gods in hiding is their ability to completely hide from each other.

In this game you are master of Holmgang and have the ability to bless the fighters. Every night you will decide to bless one of the fighters in a Holmgang challenge. If that challenge is selected, the fighter will gain 2 Holmgang points for that round. No one will notice this blessing and it if it helps them win it will appear to be by luck.
Pm me the name of the player you wish to bless every night. You can only bless a player who is listed in one of the first 6 Holmgang challenges.

You are also a master of all combat forms and can spot them easily. Any Jotun who fights in Holmgang will make their abilities known to you, even if they attempt to hide it. If a Jotun fights in Holmgang, you will notice.
The penalty is: you must spend much time to observe the fighters before and after Holmgang. If a god or Jotun observes you, they will notice you are not asleep.

Holmgang ability: 100 against humans (guarantied win). 10 against other gods or Jotun.

I simply picked a well-known Norse God who was unlikely (IMO) to have been included in the game, took the 'standard' parts of the Aesir role PM (provided by Gaius), and added in some powers that seemed balanced and appropriate to the game and which could be 'proven' without actually having to do anything. I used Sigurd's crazy formating and wrote a brief bio for the avatar as seemed to be common in his role PMs. For extra flavor, I also designed the role to be able to declare Jotun innocent in a convenient way, and tossed in an extra line "If a god or Jotun observes you" to make people think that Jotun could investigate (which proved useful when I wanted CR to be lynched).

It's ironic that multiple people were accused of having fake role PMs when they were completely legitimate, while my faked role PM was accepted without any questions. Again, it was this near total reliance on role PMs that was the town's failing IMO. Ignoring the amazing bad luck of lynching Odin in round 1 (seriously, major bad luck and no one was to blame for it except CA himself), there was plenty of evidence against us. I was blocked by Thor on Night 2 and I scrambled to turn it to my advantage by making it seem like I was protected instead of blocked. As part of this, I wrote a fake night results PM and gave it to Ichigo. He noticed that it wasn't remotely similar to the one that PK then posted very shortly afterwards. However, Ichigo disregarded that inconsistence relatively easily and never brought it up again. If he had pulled that PM out towards the end of the game, it might have been enough to lynch me.

In addition, both Sarathos and LG were spotted by positive detective results relatively early on. I'm sure this information could have been handled better, though I'm not entirely sure how.

Finally, people quickly disregarded LG's fast edit on Sarathos' innocence. His excuse was valid but flimsy. I'm sure that mafioso have intentionally lynched each other in the past to prove their own innocence, so this should have been focused on more.

[Motep]

There was simply too much information to keep track of...I kinda tired of all the thinking...

[Warmaster Horus]

Top it off with the Christian 'code' which I still assume actually did mean something even if I was never able to figure it out

Elite Ferret managed to get it decoded somewhat, but it was kind of gibberish. I'm really interested in what Sigurd will tell us about it.

[Husar]

Nice writeup Tincow and well played.
I think part of the problem with this townie group was that it only fed people it's conclusions, I never got your role PM, your protection PM etc., at first I was not even told who belonged to it etc even after I was promoted to Ichi's champion I felt like some second rate guy.

The code, well, I found out the three words but apparently there were five, I heard of a fourth word later but noone ever gave it to me and I stopped bothering about it. the trick was to enter the names and numbers on random.org which would result in it showing the names of the jotun, apparently CR got an angel visit after his death giving him some strong clue but our PM exchange ended after he asked me whether I was visited by angels after trying to off him and I confusedly replied with nope.

[Husar]

Elite Ferret managed to get it decoded somewhat, but it was kind of gibberish. I'm really interested in what Sigurd will tell us about it.

I decoded the three words that were given to me and posted them here before, when the numbers were given to me I was told that noone had an idea yet so I assumed I was the first one to make anything of them, that was part of the reason I voted for CR, I assumed he would have surely figured that out if he really wanted to.

[Crazed Rabbit]

I got more info on it, but was unable to decode it. A pity. Probably something real obvious I missed.

Sigurd, could I provide the sequences to the public?

Foolish Norsemen! You have forsaken your Gods and for your arrogance and cowardace you have paid with your lives! You were once reknowned for your skill and ferocity in battle, yet you ignored your talents and instead gathered to 'talk' about your problems. TALK! A NORSEMAN! As if that were not bad enough, you did so at the behest of a 'Christian.' A man who spoke of non-violence and passivity.

Bah! I will live to see your kind fall from the earth for lack of belief, demon! Remembrance of my actions will stretch beyond a millennium! You have no power against the true Lord God.

CR
(Well done to the Jotun though)

[Csargo]

I am not pleased.

[LittleGrizzly]

Also something which i though may have been a big clue, Tincow won a holmgang but noone even noticed he didn't get a promotion, whereas every other winner did... the amount of effort i spent making a case pointing to other people when sarathos looked like he was going to get lynched.. the amount of effort TC made making a case for other people when sarathos was in the spotlight, he led the lynch for CR when i was floundering considering voting for sarathos incase he got lynched...

[Crazed Rabbit]

Well, that could have just been a recurrence of Capo II foolishness.

Once again I am undone by supposed allies letting slip my PMs to the enemy.

CR

[LittleGrizzly]

Well you knew TC was in TIN (im fairly sure) so by giving it to TIN (Townie Information Network) you were giving it to your enemy yourself...

[Privateerkev]

From the Jotun QT:

Quote of the Game:
(Referencing' LG's role as 'Tyr')

His role PM is a little elaborate to make up.

That reminds me of my favorite quote from Taormina:

PK just doesn't strike me as mafia. He has been acting exactly as he always does in this game, and it would be nearly impossible for anyone to pull off such a perfect cover from the first turn of their first game.

And for good measure, here is LG in Taormina:

I don't think PK should be voted just because he has twice as many posts as anyone else, it could be a cover trying to seem like a helpful townie but if it is im fooled...

Looks like karma bit me on the behind in this game...

[Crazed Rabbit]

Well you knew TC was in TIN (im fairly sure) so by giving it to TIN (Townie Information Network) you were giving it to your enemy yourself...

No, I gave it only to WH, who gave it to PK, who promptly dispatched it to the enemy (Much as TC himself did in Capo).

CR

[LittleGrizzly]

Looks like karma bit me on the behind in this game...

You were the only player i happily led astray, i felt (very slight) guilt for all the other deception but i was happy to decieve you :p

Ohh well, i did promise my revenge at the end of that game, this should satisfy..

[glyphz]

'Twas a busy day, and it's sad to find out that the game is over already...

Congratulations to the mafia for a well-earned win!

And a big cheer to GameMaster Sigurd for a very well-hosted game.


Darn it! I, too, fell to LG's fake god-role (courtesy of TC). *sigh*

[Sarathos]

Thank you very much Sigurd for a truely amazing game.

But more thanks must go to TinCow and LG, they were the ones who won this game, I was just there. Our quick topic forum was littere with TC's info as he successfully manged to infiltrate the TIN ehich was great work, without him we were stuffed.

Being only my second time as mafia, It was awesome to see the way TinCow and LittleGrizzly played and really put me to shame, but I am very thankful to be on their side. An next time LG, try not to TK me....

[Csargo]

I feel betrayed.

[Tratorix]

I feel betrayed.

Yep, being betrayed will do that to ya...

[pevergreen]

Just wait until my game comes along Ichigo. I'll make a super role for you.

Ichigo: Lord of Revenge:

You are able to instantly kill any player that has wronged you in the past!

[Sigurd]

AT LEAST I DIED LIKE A MAN!

And yet, you chose pink letters ...

edit: HAH!!! you all thought this was the writeup, right ??? patience people, patience.

[shlin28]

Great game to read! But this will further cement my distrust of the "townie groups". (Force them to give some evidence that they are not mafia before letting them in... just because they are good players does not mean you should talk to them about the game ) This will probably not apply in games with the mafia having back up roles... but still...

[Ferret]

No, I gave it only to WH, who gave it to PK, who promptly dispatched it to the enemy (Much as TC himself did in Capo).

CR

uhhhh yeah, it was WH who gave it to PK

*runz*

And the code came up with random numbers next to names or something, and if you put the right key (which CR had) into random.org and used those to reorder the names in the first post numbers one, two and three would be the Jotun.

[KukriKhan]

^5

gg

I was clueless from beginning to end. I hoped translating the runes would be helpful, but that proved to be a dead-end, as did, apparently, 'the code'.

A 25% WoG rate was not helpful either. I wonder if we (or I) can figure out some device to maintain players interest who receive townie roles. Maybe some kind of pro-town power role to be rotated among random townies every other day or something, thus: "You are a townie, you must decide who is mafia, and persuade other townies to kill them, AND every (third, fourth...) day, after you receive a PM from me (host), you can independently kill or investigate one player".

Just to encourage lowly townies to pay attention. I did notice that Sigurd apparently tried to encourage participation by making the "...if 100% of voters vote..." provision in a role PM.

Anyway: very well-played Jotun/Mafia, and valiently attempted, town. Brilliantly hosted Sigurd. I especially appreciated your punctuality, and thanks very much for describing my role in such heroic terms - even if I did have to swallow spit to die.

[TinCow]

A 25% WoG rate was not helpful either. I wonder if we (or I) can figure out some device to maintain players interest who receive townie roles. Maybe some kind of pro-town power role to be rotated among random townies every other day or something, thus: "You are a townie, you must decide who is mafia, and persuade other townies to kill them, AND every (third, fourth...) day, after you receive a PM from me (host), you can independently kill or investigate one player".

Just to encourage lowly townies to pay attention. I did notice that Sigurd apparently tried to encourage participation by making the "...if 100% of voters vote..." provision in a role PM.

One option might be to give townies minor abilities if they survive for X turns, perhaps increasing in power the longer they are alive, ala Capo II, but without the group cooperation requirement. This might keep them interested and would also provide a more interesting twist to the game, as townies wouldn't be quite as complacent about being lynched early on.

[FactionHeir]

I still don't get what numbers everyone is talking about.

[Ferret]

The three Christian players, me, CR and WH, were each given a string of numbers which when put together would supposedly help us find the Jotun.

[FactionHeir]

Oh.
What was your objective btw?

[Husar]

And yet, you chose pink letters ...

That was not accidental, but glad you liked it.

Great game to read! But this will further cement my distrust of the "townie groups". (Force them to give some evidence that they are not mafia before letting them in... just because they are good players does not mean you should talk to them about the game ) This will probably not apply in games with the mafia having back up roles... but still...

This was not the case here, TinCow had a back up role, that of Ichigo's champion meaning Ichigo's PM said something like:
Your champion is: TinCow

Meaning Ichigo's faction was infiltrated from the start and he did not know it, the Jotun was even called his buddy by the gamemaster so blaming Ichigo for not suspecting Tincow is a bit off in my opinion, that was something the rest of the town was supposed to figure out I guess.