BuffyVerse Mafia: Apocalypse Now [Concluded]

[autolycus]

classical_hero, the only ID scanners in the game were Lilah, already scum, and Jenny, who never got recruited by any team. You had 14 people recruitable at the start of the game. As for cover roles, it was a conscious decision on my part not to give cover roles, but when Doc and Marcus are both town, characters can't be read for much. It is possible to create a plausible cover role based on the wiki and nothing else, it just takes more work and more guts. For proof, I'd point to the one Atpg made for me when I was dark Link in Hyrule. All 3 principals were reasonable semi-majors, as was Andrew Wells. In retrospect, I'm surprised I didn't use any of them.
I'm curious what you mean by the second half of that statement, classical. If I'd just done Buffy, it either would have been a smaller game or I would have thrown in yet more minor characters.


Anyway, here are my comments during the first three days and nights of the game. I stopped doing them as consistently thereafter.

Pre-game: I didn't want any potential moles in the mafia teams, after
the mixed feelings in Battle for Hyrule. However, I did put potential
for moles in both good guy squads. Willow can turn Dark, Angel is
vulnerable to Darla if Darla gets converted, and Gunn can go vamp after joining
Angel
Bad guy teams Strengths/Weaknesses:
Order of Aurelius: largest conversion pool, but weakest kills, and
few other abilities.
Wolfram and Hart: Humans, so a potential trap for Buffy and could
pass as neutral. Has one of the view ID scanners in the game. All converts
have their own abilities. However, no kills to start out with, smallest
conversion pool, and internal division on P.O.'s
Glorificus: Strongest kill, doesn't have to decide between kill and
convert. However, only one of her, can only kill every other night,
and most recruits scan as Location Hell Dimension
Good guy team Strengths/Weaknesses:
Scoobies: Large team. Can grow. However, Dark Willow real
possibility, actually becomes bigger risk as Scoobies grow.
Angel Inv: Strongest Protection and only guilt innocence scan, thanks
to Visions. However, starts with only two, risk of
infiltration/corruption
Day 1: Fairly usual, Day 1, lots of action on innocent QTs, not so
much on Scum. Secura misrepresents what loses kill for her as killing
INNOCENT, rather than killing HUMAN, despite the limitation being
called Black and White Morality :). Will have to see if this comes back to
bite her.
Day 1 Continued
"The main problem is that this is a power role heavy game; there's the
four of us, and you can bet that Angel probably has a similar-sized
team.
Then there's Faith, perhaps Dawn/Tara/Oz... that leads me to believe
that the respective bad guys will be of equal or greater strength; I guess
there may even be a godfather-esque role, perhaps killable only by
Buffy or Angel."
Secura continues to use her powers of deduction to guess who I have in
the game. Over-estimates size of Angel Inv, but guesses 4 roles.
Ironically, Dawn/Tara/Oz are weaker roles, at least this early in the game. In
other news Sasaki use Anoint in the thread without even remembering that he
is the Anointed One. We'll see what happens with that :)
End Day 1
DiY(Clem) is lynched, an innocent. This is not great for the town, but
is certainly better than lynching Doyle(Yaropolk). With 14 hours left,
Riley(Warman) makes the decision to protect Gunn(Atpg). Unfortunately
for him, this makes him active, and therefore Vanessa(Seon) will succeed in
killing him. Meanwhile, Gunn is going to kill Lindsay(Acin), and the
vamps are stalking Doyle (Yaropolk). If things stand as they are, both
L.A. power teams are at real risk of getting hurt. Atpg seems to have
soft-claimed to Romanic, but due to the way he answered, he seems to
have soft-claimed more as Dru than Gunn. We'll see how this all pans out.
Night 1
2 deaths, both as a result of vig's. One's scum, the other's scum
recruitable. Definitely could be worse for the town. Yaropolk asks a
number of good questions, not least about corruptibility of converts but
switches to trying to recruit dcmort (Darla), rather than Chaotix
(Fred),
due to Chaotix' bizarre doctor claim, and doesn't consider, at least to
me, the possibility of him or Angel getting corrupted. Skooma gets
scanned
by W & H, but he's Ben tonight, so he's not sunk. How much losing
Lindsay
hurts Wolfram and Hart will depend a lot on whether acin stays active
trying to sell the town on him as innocent or at least neutral.
Day 2
Lots of roles revealed. Last-minute random counterwagon onto Link
fails, and Seon dies. Townie, but highly corruptible.
Night 2
Every single protector just about in the game piles onto Yaropolk, while
every scanner scans Sasaki, who blocks yaropolk. Both are attacked.
Meanwhile the vamps jump fluffy, who dies but isn't converted. Weakest
of the Scoobies, but he's still a Scooby and thus begins to pave the way
for dark Willow. Town's doing really well, thanks in part to some
scary-good night kills by Atpg.
Day 3
Even more roles revealed to Secura, and dcmort is lynched, eliminating the
possibility of Angelus/evil Angel. Oh, well. She has succeeded in
becoming the heart of a townie network. The question is, how soon will it
get infiltrated/how soon will she die?
Night 3
Atpg continues his magnum opus in why town vigilantes may be overpowered,
as he arrives at 3 for 3 in scum-slaying. Meanwhile, the scum continue to
be unable to locate recruitables, and atpg gets recruited by Doyle. He is
still vulnerable to vampage, so we'll see if he winds up experiencing that
brutal twist. pever gets stalked, but he's not recruitable

[Renata]

I actually am very fond of town vigilantes in games; it's only vigilante plus perfect information that becomes so brutally hard on the mafia.

[robbiecon]

Well, it must be said it was always going to be extremely difficult for the mafia teams to win at all. Nonetheless, I think it was a good example of collaboration behind the scenes, so well done to all involved. Three successful scum vigs is a row ATPG, impressive.

[autolycus]

My breakdown of the initial probabilities, looking at the game after the fact is probably
57% Innocent
6 % Glory
10 % Order
10% Wolfram
2 % Oz SK
15 % Dark Willow

Which was not, fundamentally, balanced, given that that's barely more than a 1 in 4 chance that any original scum team wins.

[Reenk Roink]

Whatever issues the game may have had thanks for hosting the game auto.

pever, sorry man, but I thought it was quite obvious who I was from like round 2 of my playing, especially since I told you "join my team" and "Yaropolk's my teammate"

[robbiecon]

Wish I'd become Dark Willow now. I like those odds.

[Secura]

Wish I'd become Dark Willow now. I like those odds.

When you became quiet in the QT, I had a feeling something like this may have happened; it wasn't helped by Reenk's suspicion of my teammates either. :P

[Yaropolk]

I really do wish some inflitrations did happen to spice up the game! To quote Reenk's PM to me:

Lastly, everyone is expendable in this game except you and me. We are Shaq and Kobe, the rest are just the other Lakers. Secura is like Phil Jackson.

[Secura]

Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

[Romanic]

Aye, good game everyone. It did look imbalanced toward the Town, things were too easy. I guess our only struggle was having to convince the two Town teams that Greyblades and I were not bad vampires and that we had nothing to do with Fluffy dying.

Thanks for the game Autolycus, and please keep doing Buffy games, I'm starting to like this show.

[Winston Hughes]

I have never deserved a victory less than this one. Nevertheless, thanks to Auto for the game, and well done to the town cabal insiders for their demolition of the scum.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Gunn remained vampable even after joining Angel.

Lol.

[Askthepizzaguy]

I actually am very fond of town vigilantes in games; it's only vigilante plus perfect information that becomes so brutally hard on the mafia.

It must be mentioned:

ACIN was a fairly random choice,
Sasaki was based on his own odd behavior choices,
Classical_hero was based on his entirely scummy vote for me,
and nothing else.

I had zero pro-town network intelligence on any of these. It really was just bad, bad luck for the scums.

[Greyblades]

Huh, what happened to Reenk's "greyblades is next"?

[Renata]

I'm amused that I actually correctly called you a vampire. Romanic I knew about (and actually guessed correctly the role, even) based on ATPG chats, but you could have been Buffy herself for all I knew.

[Secura]

classical_hero was based on his entirely scummy vote for me

To be fair, we did get a claim from c_h, it's just that between the two of us we decided that it wasn't much of a loss if he turned out to be innocent, so you went through with it. :P

you could have been Buffy herself for all I knew.

Did none of you pin me as being Buffy? I thought it was obvious after Reenk began implying it in-thread. :P

[Romanic]

I'm amused that I actually correctly called you a vampire. Romanic I knew about (and actually guessed correctly the role, even) based on ATPG chats, but you could have been Buffy herself for all I knew.

ATPG talks too much

Me Buffy? Meh. I was trying to keep a low profile in the thread, to keep the mason team alive, as we were aware that the survivor could be detrimental to his team, specially Drusilla (me): We knew that there's no way Dru would be recruited in a pro-Town team, thanks to Secura's knowledge of the show. And there's also that we couldn't be recruited - I thought that I could catch a mafia recruiter trying to recruit me, if I didn't act pro-Town.

I've failed, if you thought I could be pro-Town.

[Renata]

Did none of you pin me as being Buffy? I thought it was obvious after Reenk began implying it in-thread. :P

At that point I just didn't care much which completely untouchable role you were. Obviously you were one of the main ones, but it didn't much matter to me which as I couldn't do anything about it.

[Zack]

At the end of the game, the two teams stood at:


We would have recruited a few more, but robbiecon missed an order and I ended up a little paranoid about infiltrators so we didn't risk it from then onwards; Angel Investigations recruited everyone except the deceased Fred Burkle/Chaotix.

You forgot to include my limited protections!

[Secura]

You forgot to include my limited protections!

I wasn't made aware that you could protect... :P

[Askthepizzaguy]

A highly oversimplified and comically self-serving look back at the game, from my perspective.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I would have a neutral role, and accuse myself of working with the vampires while secretly trying to infiltrate the vampires by acting friendly towards them. Then, I would probably tip off the vampires that they shouldn't trust me, because I've been known to double-cross the scums before. It would be my hope that my honesty would get them to trust me, right before I backstab them by publicly revealing who they were.

Something like this actually happened, even after I stated I was going to do this before the game.

Also known as pevergreen's kryptonite. When Askthereenksaguy is born, there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth, and eyes will bleed, and children will frown, and ice cream will melt and become all soupy. Fingernails will grow, and there will be a mysterious absence of nail clippers. The incumbency rate in Congress will finally reach 100%. *shudder*

Then, the dark times will come. And on top of a pile of human skulls, there will be two lone figures, laughing at the destruction and misery. It will be glorious.

This also sort of happened, seeing as Reenk and I were on the same team, and there was a pile of bodies....

Come on guys! We must spare the suspected serial killer and destroy someone random for no reason! That's how you guys won Dr. Who in spectacularly amazing and logic-defying fashion.

Bah, you're no fun at all.

In retrospect, this is even funnier, because we had reason to suspect Seon of being a Serial Killer, and no real reason to suspect Link besides his odd "I promise to be active this time" post.... yet, the absolutely reasonless mindless counterwagon was the correct choice, AGAIN, just like the Dr. Who game....

Vote: Cecil XIX

Yes.

vote: ATPG

No.

Vote:ATPG He never explained his first vote and then he turned on Sprig since it was convenient for him.

No.

vote: ATPG. One one hand you threaten the town, on the other you say they have to take a stand.

No.

Vote: Cecil XIX

Yes.

Vote: Cecil XIX

Yes.

The End.

[classical_hero]

This is the second game I've been mafia where I have been overruled by team mates, when it would have been prudent. In the CoV game I wanted DE to scan JHT before I got killed by him, but it did not happen. I wanted our group to sire ATPG first, but they said it is not best to target such strong players early in the game. It does seem when I am mafia that I have a knack of seeking out power roles in the town and wanting to do something about it. So if your are mafia with me next time I am mafia around here, which seems to be every second game I've played here, please listen to me, since I have an uncanny knack of finding out who the mafia should be against. Imagine having Dunn as a vampire who is also a kill, so that would have been two kills for us.

[Secura]

It's because your team didn't want to metagame by targeting Pizza straight away. :P

Honestly, I don't think it would have done you much good in the long run anyway, as Pizza was always top of the list of suspects within the town network simply because he knew so much.

[Askthepizzaguy]

It would have made my vig kills a lot different, that's for sure. It might not have changed the outcome of the game, but it would have prolonged their struggle.

Not game winning by itself, but combined with other good moves and some bad townie ones, it could have made a difference.

[classical_hero]

And with the town onto pizza instead of me, it would have made a big difference latter on when I could have had more chances to get more team mate, which was pretty much the role of the group.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Yes. In general, cults are most vulnerable early on, while mafia are more vulnerable later on. Cults start with few members, and expand; mafia start with maximum (usually) and then lose members through death. Lucky vigilante shots cripple early cults, and are one of the few ways to challenge a large cult. It's the only way the Happy Mask Cult was taken down in the Zelda game, with their nine eventual members.

I do think a second (and third, and fourth?) vig might have been overkill, but if both vigs had sloppier aim and both survived longer and/or got recruited, imagine the chaos that would have reigned. Buffy team members and AI team members could have gotten slain. It could have forced Buffy into doing some attacks, thus less protections.... still prolongs the game and causes more chances for the cults to expand.

Game can go from wildly unbalanced to balanced real quick with just a couple of key decision differences. Thus, the game is potentially balanced or unbalanced, but quite chaotic.

[classical_hero]

I should have been more forceful in my attempts to try and recruit you in the QT.

[Diamondeye]

This is the second game I've been mafia where I have been overruled by team mates, when it would have been prudent. In the CoV game I wanted DE to scan JHT before I got killed by him, but it did not happen. I wanted our group to sire ATPG first, but they said it is not best to target such strong players early in the game. It does seem when I am mafia that I have a knack of seeking out power roles in the town and wanting to do something about it. So if your are mafia with me next time I am mafia around here, which seems to be every second game I've played here, please listen to me, since I have an uncanny knack of finding out who the mafia should be against. Imagine having Dunn as a vampire who is also a kill, so that would have been two kills for us.

Hmmm. I think I made purely sound calls in that game. You popped by with a big red flag saying "Diamondeye" after you died, though.
Scanning JHT would probably have been a waste. Before he turned SK, it'd be a normal scan. After he turned SK, it'd be a wasted scan. I was scanning for recruits.