The Thing Mafia [Concluded]

[GeneralHankerchief]

Approachability as you mentioned, mainly. If I'm online and someone needs to ask me something important, they know I'm there. I figure I can get by without it on in games.

[Ishmael]

I think everything has been pretty much said here, so I'd just like to thank TinCow for a fabulous and entertaining game

[Reenk Roink]

I turned it off after Lestarde in Mafia IV. Of course, it hardly makes a difference nowadays in many games, especially the more complicated ones. But it seems to have popped up for the anonymous accounts again.

So who else wanted to be The Thing? I almost didn't get to be it, until TinCow PM'd me making sure.

[Montmorency]

In fact, had GH selected otherwise, I most likely would have killed Monty, because activity watching is kinda cheap just like the number/language thing. It's just more effective than those.

I kept Lucanio alive because I really didn't know who he was at the time. Granted after that, I went back and thought he was classical, but before I never expended the effort to figure him out. Most others I was able to get just by my regular reading of the thread. So I figured, hey this guy is pretty sneaky.
Also, I'm sorry to hear about your illness c_h, and hope all the best for you. Monty, it's OK to not buy the RL excuses (Sigurd has used them a lot), but I thought the way you confronted c_h about it was really mean.

Yes, it just seemed so convenient (just out of the blue) that my ScumAlarm went wild. It was an overreaction, but it was your doing, really. That Rocco misdirection really had me -uh, weird. I do apologize if you were offended, classical.

That first quote up there - well, I'll just summarize it.

My strategy for the day was to loosely imitate Reenk based on his earlier behavior. The idea was that Reenk would see me as an esy scapegoat and immediately make a case against me. But then Frank and Vito began a showdown, and though I kept up the charade I knew my plan had failed. Then Vito said:

The problem with that is that Reenk has left me alive the entire game.

Your Reenk-impersonating-Nick-impersonating-Reenk needs work, Nick.

The reason I don't think it's Nick is because he has been acting a lot like Pizza early on. Trite, jokey one-liners aimed at impersonating Reenk. I don't think Reenk would do that.

Those posts were scummy as all get-out (is this actually an expression?). And besides, that was my Pizza-impersonating-Nick-impersonating-Reenk.

Once you confronted me about the vote-change onto Vito, I backed down because I'm non-confrontational by nature. Then I remembered your earlier lurkishness and the conspicuous absence of Luciano, so I voted him to pressure him into posting. Immediately I realized that I'd let the same thing as with Rocco happen, and I took out my indignation on Luciano later on.

Recalling classical's similar behavior in the Vespasian game a few weeks ago, I realized that this was par for the course. Unfortunately, Luciano began to suspect Frank. Frank did not help the situation by acting increasingly scummy. And so by this point I had almost forgotten about you. Luciano made a long post full of old quotes just 3 minutes after Reenk had posted elsewhere. This definitively cleared him in my mind.

The whole phase, I had been collating evidence. And you did really well here. The posting activity and profile activity records indicated that Vito was legitimate. Finally, you posted again:

It may just be me, but I'm reading this exchange between Frank and Luciano as Reenk trying to cover both bases.

This post made no sense to me, but I let it slide. I posted my big ol' glob of data and waited for the analysis to roll in. Now, at the end of the post, I wrote, "Cheap? Perhaps."

So when Frank replied with, "Cheap indeed..." I nearly lost it. NO. WAY. IN. HELL. Would I allow a repeat of Rocco, is what I thought. Why would a townie ignore evidence that could only help him? Clearly Reenk was trying to discredit information that he felt might sink him, right? But I didn't revote just yet. I wanted to wait for you. You then did the worst possible thing: you ignored me. You just replied to Frank's question about Reenk's place of residence. I despaired. I really didn't like Frank's "cheap" post, but couldn't reconcile your behavior with what I knew of GH. I figured you thought "Oh, I don't need Nick. I have 2 votes already." I recognized your complacency. And townies can never afford to be complacent. Tension, dissension, apprehension had begun.

After a few hours, I'd had enough of tension, enough of inactivity. I voted Vito to force a response. "And if Vito really is town", I thought, "he deserves to lose in the tiebreaker for this arrogance." This was your last chance. Some patronizing reassurance here would have saved you, I think.

To pass the time, I reexamined my data. It struck me that you are smart. You would cover your tracks. I shouldn't look for sloppiness (as with the timing of Arjos and Franks' posts with yours).
So I noticed something about Vito's posts and GH's activity. Twice, there was a gap between GH's activity and Vito's posts of 5-15 minutes. I refused to believe that GH had been sitting in Vito planning out those 3-line posts for such a long time. But fine, I thought. This is still inconclusive.

So I continued my vigil. And at 9, it hpappened. GH posted in the Gameroom, but did not respond to my vote. I realized the truth of it immediately. Certainty flowed through me.

The second phase began. I waited for Luciano. I needed to make him vote Vito. I couldn't risk a failed tiebreaker. But the hours slid by, and there was no sign of him. Finally, at 2:20 AM, I had given up. I was about to hit the hay, but decided to check the Org once more. And Luciano had posted. I knew then that we had won.

Yep, so, you should have courted me, Reenk. I'm sure I'd have been easily convinced. I'm a sucker for authority figures. But it sure was exciting.

And you know what, if Monty is going to refresh for 11 hours, he deserves to win.

I was reading a book to pass the time, and I'd just refresh the Org every 10-15 minutes. Sometime around midnight, I realized that, "I've only read 50 pages, OH NOOOOOO!"
This Mafia stuff is as bad as any MMO. :P

2) Had I picked Lecavalier over Stamkos and you had let me live, I had a plan to figure out if you were either Nick/Monty or Sonny/DiY. I know DiY well enough to ask him a question only he could answer, and with Nick/Monty, as I mentioned in the QT, I would have been able to get you from the image hosting thing. If you had taken over either Frank or Luciano, I would have had a tougher time but in the end those odds are 50-50, which aren't bad.

Indeed a good plan. In fact, I'd secretly hoped that Reenk would take me. I figured he - you -

I'd probably botch a Monty impersonation badly. Plus the guy kept changing his style.

wouldn't be able to convincingly imitate my manic and hyperbolic style. Even when it was no longer structured by formal meter. I doubt many could successfully trifle with this gaping maw of raving lunacy. Of course, I also hoped you wouldn't kill me, in which case I would get to taste sweet glory.

So yeah, good game. I look forward to singlehandedly defeating the Things in the large game!

[Arjos]

So when Frank replied with, "Cheap indeed..." I nearly lost it. NO. WAY. IN. HELL.

Ahahahahahahah, my upright nature doesn't like that :D
I had great fun in that final round ^^
All that increasingly scummy, I'll never get it...

[GeneralHankerchief]

I wanted to be The Thing, oh yeah. Don't think I would have done it in such style, but it would definitely have been fun.

[TinCow]

Oh, that reminds me. Here is the list of people who volunteered for The Thing, after random.org reordering:

1. Reenk
2. ATPG
3. classical_hero
4. Major Robert Dump
5. Tratorix
6. GH
7. johnhughthom

[Montmorency]

Oh, and before I forget to ask again: the biggest mystery of the game.

Mr. Stuka, why? Why would you do that? Why would you private-claim to be Reenk? You didn't even speak up in self defence once we wagonned you.

What was the point of that exercise? I just don't get it.

[Death is yonder]

Well good job Reenk, it was fun to watch, more so after I go into the dead quicktopic. Somewhat bummed because I wanted to see how you would handle the language issue and time-zone consistency, but hey, busy-ness is busy-ness.

DiY, you mentioned the timezone thing, but consider that as Paulie in the very beginning, I was posting at 5 AM (eastern). I'm a medical student. I don't sleep

Hmpph true but you've got to sleep sometime

So I was not impressed with the numbers and foreign language things (DiY: who else speaks Chinese here?).

I had accounted for no one else speaking Chinese here. I banked on at least several people referring to a translator just to constantly/periodically see what Luciano was writing (and thus mightaswell translate mine as well), and so I deliberately phrased my chinese sentences to make full sense in Chinese, but not in English.

It wasn't so that others who understood Chinese would spot discrepancies, but rather that it would be difficult to straight away translate to Chinese because then it would make sense according to the translator, which it wasn't supposed to

A bit easier to fool, but better than nothing (and would be funny to see how you would try to deliberately introduce errors into the translation to try and follow suit)

Anyway, I think Beefy knows some Chinese, and if I'm not wrong (off-hand memory) Taka might know a bit too.

Still, t'was a good game, and thanks to Tincow for hosting

Love to try some stuff out next time in the upcoming sequels.

[Askthepizzaguy]

I admit I was curious to see how I'd do as the Thing, but mainly, I signed up to ensure that Tincow would get a good game even if everyone else was too timid to take on the challenge.

This could have been before Reenk and GH signed up. Don't recall.

I felt confident I could imitate people well enough to get at least halfway through the game, which is all you really need for fun.

[TinCow]

I admit I was curious to see how I'd do as the Thing, but mainly, I signed up to ensure that Tincow would get a good game even if everyone else was too timid to take on the challenge.

This could have been before Reenk and GH signed up. Don't recall.

Yeah, I think you were the first to volunteer.

[slashandburn]

just read this and would like to join the large game. also i understand basic chinese, simplified not traditional

[TinCow]

just read this and would like to join the large game. also i understand basic chinese, simplified not traditional

Thanks, though it will be a long wait for the large version.

[slashandburn]

that's ok, it will be worth the wait