Himelander Mafia Thread (Over! Scum Win!)

[Kilgamayan]

where she might actually matter to the plot in some fashion

I consider this a personal victory.

[Bardiche]

I now have an avatar. So you can be lazy and look at DESIRE instead of names to distinguish Cid and I.

[Edible]

*whistles*

[El Cideon]

This is what five seconds on GIS gets you.

[Bardiche]

*whistles*

... I'm okay with this.

[Kefit]

Kilga, going to the golden land generally involves being ripped apart by demons and then not mattering to the plot. Just fyi.

[EvilTom]

Nooooooooooooooooooo!
Not doujinshi! Ahhh~ <3
http://media.animevice.com/uploads/0/74/36091-mmg5_super.jpg
(cute, not porn)

[Carthrat]

Apologies for not starting this sooner, I will forgo exciting storytime here to get things moving. It always seems like such a good idea at the time...

1. Kazahana Mashiro is bardiche, who should've been midori
2. Minagi Mikoto kitten4u likes cats can you tell
4. Kikukawa Yukino alice has a thing for tentacles
5. Sugiura Midori ciato can't get nightkilled this game
6. Higurashi Akane chaos will probably die first
7. Yuuki Nao kiro climbed up the water spout
8. Himeno Fumi serpentarius is a teacatching fiend
9. Okuzaki Akira roukanken epitomizes gender identification issues
10. Munakata Shiho kefit can strangle you with her hair
11. Fujino Shizuru uncertainkitten hates old people with passion
12. Alyssa Searrs jam-kiske's ion cannon is ready
15. Harada Chie cid couldn't wait for fatal frame mafia
16. Miyu Grear siralex was forced out the coolant tank

<-->

13. Sanada Yukariko (pesco) was defeated by Kazahana Mashiro (bardiche) in The Battle of the Unexpected Motorist
14. Senou Aoi (kilga) was defeated by Miyu Grear (siralex) and Sugiura Midori (ciato) in The Battle of the Misplaced Bullet!
14. Kuga Natsuki (eviltom) was defeated by Miyu Grear (siralex) and Sugiura Midori (ciato) in The Battle of the Misplaced Bullet!

It is Round 3! The Hime Star is high in the sky! There are no special events. You have 24 hours to make a challenge!

[Serp]

Alright, we have one scumflip, and scum have taken no more than two heads.  I think that our smartest play at this point is to treat Alex, Bardiche, and Ciato as loose ends that ought to be cleaned up.  Our best way of doing that is probably to have Alex and Ciato fight each other, have Bardiche kill the winner, and then probably have someone else kill Bardiche.  The following is a rundown of how the power balance would look afterwards.  For conciseness, I'll assume that Alex kills Ciato, though I'm going to do a reread before I decide where I'd put my vote.  Switching Alex and Ciato's town/scum alignment and which of them kills the other will lead to an equivalent case:

1.  Bardiche, Alex, and Ciato all scum:  Four scumflips, two heads claimed by scum.
2.  Bardiche, Alex scum, Ciato town:  Three scumflips, three heads claimed by scum.
3.  Bardiche, Ciato scum, Alex town:  Three scumflips, three heads claimed by scum.
4.  Bardiche scum, Alex and Ciato town:  Two scumflips, two heads claimed by scum.
5.  Bardiche town, Alex and Ciato scum:  Three scumflips, one (two if Bardiche killed by scum) heads claimed by scum.
6.  Bardiche town, Alex scum, Ciato town:  Two scumflips, two (three if Bardiche killed by scum) heads claimed by scum.
7.  Bardiche town, Alex town, Ciato scum:  Two scumflips, one (two if Bardiche killed by scum) heads claimed by scum.
8.  Bardiche, Alex, and Ciato all town:  One scumflip, zero (one if Bardiche killed by scum) heads claimed by scum.

Case 3 makes me think that if the loser of Alex versus Ciato flips scum, then perhaps the winner should be the one to kill Bardiche before being killed, as it's unlikely that Tom would've picked two scumbuddies to go up against him, but that's up for discussion.

:words:, I know, but this chart shows that only in one of those cases can town possibly end up any worse off than it is now, and only then if we pick wrong both on Alex versus Ciato and on who should kill Bardiche.  The chart doesn't take into account scum versus town voting strength, but even in a worst-case scenario where ABC are all town and scum were given five players to start, scum will need either to get Bardiche killed by one of them, or else to get another kill without losing anymore of their number in the two kills between then and having eight players left, or else they'll run out of heads to claim and lose by default.

FakeVote:  Alex versus Ciato

[Ranmilia]

Okey dokies.  As far as I can tell, absolutely nothing has happened to me as a result of winning that challenge.  However... how can I put this?  I did not have a one shot or otherwise limited-use power for which I had already expended any charges.  It seems possible/probable that winning challenges replenishes charges of limited use abilities?

I would like Ciato to be half of today's challenge, since A. Tom's ploy really didn't make any sense unless she or I is scum, and I'm not scum, and B. she is still objectively scummy in my view for the same reasons I wanted her challenged yesterday, crazy tone, defense of Pesco, etc.  One can observe marked similarities in tone between her and Tom's day 1 posts.

For the challengee... well, I suppose we're waiting on Cid to tell us what is the haps here.  (Cid I swear to Nagi though if you just jump the gun and challenge someone I will be autovoting against you even if you claim hypercharger~)

If Cid is all "oh no nevermind" .... I actually have no particular preferences since I'm pretty confident in Ciato's scumminess and would vote anyone else in the game over her right now.  Chaos is probably the next scummiest to me and I think matching scummy players up is a generally good strategy, but after that I don't really know right now.

Ninja'd by Serp.  Cleaning up Ciato and myself is a good plan since as above it is generally obvious that at least one of the two of us has to be scum.  Buuuut actually pitting the two of us together runs into the difficulty of a flat 50% chance of being wrong and giving scum a head, from the perspective of an outside townie who isn't confident on us one way or the other.  Bard is a different matter altogether, he wasn't involved in the 2v2 and you're arguing for his death purely on the basis of "kill people who have won duels vs town" which carries no weight as a sole reason as I've said earlier.  Trying to math out a path to endgame this early on is a very bad idea, it is likely scum have roles that will screw with plans, etc etc.

[Ranmilia]

A more concise and less rambly way of what I'm trying to toss out is: Ciato and myself should probably be killed, but we should be executed one at a time and not by each other, and Ciato first please~

[Serp]

Ninja'd by Serp.  Cleaning up Ciato and myself is a good plan since as above it is generally obvious that at least one of the two of us has to be scum.  Buuuut actually pitting the two of us together runs into the difficulty of a flat 50% chance of being wrong and giving scum a head, from the perspective of an outside townie who isn't confident on us one way or the other.

Well, as I mentioned before, Tom's strategy made less sense for a townie than for scum, but it still makes so little sense as scum that I wouldn't be at all surprised if it were a total red herring to have us pick more (potentially scum) outside players to off you and Ciato.  It probably has a lower expected value for scum than one guaranteed kill, but in a game where the odds look to be stacked against scum, I wouldn't be surprised if they decided to take the more risky option with the higher potential payout.  The possibility that you're both town actually makes it riskier for us to pick outsiders to kill you.

Bard is a different matter altogether, he wasn't involved in the 2v2 and you're arguing for his death purely on the basis of "kill people who have won duels vs town" which carries no weight as a sole reason as I've said earlier.

Your reasoning there was poor, as you were only thinking in terms of vote balance.  If we can starve scum of heads to claim, then it doesn't matter if they outnumber us.  It also lets us know exactly where we stand, to get the flips of those that have fought.  Right now, we're somewhere between one more scumkill than heads claimed, and one less scumkill than heads claimed.  If we keep on picking new people to fight, we'll most likely plow right into LyLo without knowing it.

Trying to math out a path to endgame this early on is a very bad idea, it is likely scum have roles that will screw with plans, etc etc.

It's one thing to map out a path to the endgame, but I'm just working with the basic rules here.  Scum need a certain number of heads to win.  Scum only have a certain number of lives to spend.  My course will keep both of those low, while still providing evidence (in the form of votes between Alex and Ciato, and on who should fight Bardiche) to judge where to go from there.

[Bardiche]

Remember that if town<scum, scum win unless town<6 and scum have <1 amount of kills.

In other words, I strongly discourage killing town for the sake of depriving scum of heads, and I strongly encourage taking action against people who are scummy.

Between Ciato and Alex I feel most comfortable keeping Alex alive, if at least only for now. If we don't get scum with Ciato's death, I strongly discourage offing me because we'd be down 4 town, 1 scum and possibly scum will already have one head, assuming at least one of Alex/Ciato is scum.

If anyone has a confirmation power to use now would be a smashing time to use it, because if this was a red herring we stand to idle around and kill two town, possibly selecting scum to do it.

PS: I don't believe Cid should be given the kill that easily without having him explain it to us beside "this would be beneficial to town" because by my logic having me kill everyone would be beneficial too. (in that scum at least don't get kills)

[El Cideon]

It seems possible/probable that winning challenges replenishes charges of limited use abilities?

Sounds reasonable. Bard clearly stated that winning his duel gave him another shot of his power.

Regarding Alex vs. Ciato: Tom's actions yesterday make no sense whatsoever if both Alex and Ciato are scum. He would've put three of his own team in danger, not just in yesterday's match but due to lingering suspicion in following days, to potentially make one kill. Given the flip, I stand by my reading from yesterday: Tom saw town setting up a match with him in it and did what he could to salvage the situation for his side. His potential partner being scum also helps explain why he did this and fits with my general impression of Ciato as significantly a background presence that reeks of scum lurking.

I'm not really able to reconcile the idea of Tom starting that match if Alex is scum; at the least, I consider it much less likely given that there are other charges against Ciato and I haven't had much problem with Alex. I'm not really buying theories about Tom wanting to plant red herrings or wild conspiracy notions about him and Alex faking the whole conflict to make the survivor look good; it'd still be a great risk for uncertain gain. Sure, scum can do these things, but I generally frown on complicated theorizing unless there's a considerable amount of evidence to support it. The simplest explanations are often much more reliable, I find, and the most straightforward one here is that Tom wanted to make sure town didn't act on Alex's proposal and set him up on a team with Ciato. They were likely already screwed and collecting Kilga in the bargain was their best shot at getting something out of the situation.

I'd rather have myself challenge Ciato than Alex because I want to ensure that we catch scum and it bothers me that there's still some theorizing about Tom/Alex being on the same side. I saw some of that talk creeping in near the end of yesterday (and Serp mentioned red herrings today) and it makes me wonder if this is scum seeding doubts so that they might win a projected Alex/Ciato matchup (going to take a close look at the players involved later). This is why I'd prefer to challenge Ciato myself: there seems to be a decent amount of confidence in me and I think I have a better chance of preventing a mislynch if I'm the challenger. Although I think Ciato's guilt fairly obvious, I'd rather not take chances with her getting away. At the least, scum would have to work harder to establish any reason to vote against me than Alex, who's had a couple people express doubts about him. This could only help to make the scum players more obvious.

Made myself late to work to write this, so I'm bolting out the door now. See ya later, folks.

[Kiro]

Alright, moving onto Day 3: with the flips we got, it should be pretty certain that one or perhaps both of Alex or Ciato is scum. So case by case:

Ciato's reason for finding Alex scummy was saying that he was accusing players "who dared to defend someone he didn't like." I think that premise is wrong because Alex was attacking Pesco for his rash challenge and he was going against you and Tom for what he called unnatural defenses. Your opinion that Pesco was providing more helpful content than Bard is something I believe too, but when I read the 2nd paragraph of your #182, I see: Pesco is crazy, he's thoughtful, logic doesn't make as much sense, following instincts is good sometimes, but his logic is still hard to follow. I can understand why Alex would call you out on that now as it's waffling on Pesco and ignores Pesco's basic crime: that he initiated without giving people time to discuss. Also, if Alex was trying to set up a fight between you and Tom for Day 2, why was there a problem with it? If you're Townie and you think the other player is Scum, why not take advantage and beat him head to head. Alex could be wrong about you, but you took it too defensively for it to appear like a misunderstanding or that you might have lost such a bout. In essence, you got your wish and helped eliminate a Scum. It's already being suggested that you don't fight Alex today so all you really need to hope for if you're Townie is that the person who has to eliminate you is not Scum so they don't bag your head. If you're Scum, well, you got called out and you're gonna die.

On Alex, he pressed for Bardiche's survival over Pesco and then made the suggestion that Tom and Ciato fight each other for Day 2. Then when Day 2 began, Tom reacted adversely and prepped a challenge that saw one Scum and one Townie die. Tom choosing both his accuser and the suspected scumbuddy to be against him is the big WIFOM though. Alex was right about Tom on Day 1 and if Alex is Town, that was a good deduction and Tom panicked in a sense. If Alex is Scum, Tom would hope that an Alex vs Ciato scenario would indeed take place in Day 3 likely meaning ScumAlex would have had the rare opportunity to bag 2 heads riding on the success of calling out Tom. That just doesn't seem as likely because in addition to calling out a scumbuddy for potential Town cred, if he foresaw Tom doing what he did, he would realize his own days would be numbered and it doesn't bode well for his team as a whole.

One of them should be in today's match and be the loser. The fact that Alex is now suggesting not to have the Alex v Ciato match bodes well for his Townieness even more and is the best way to limit the chance of Scum finding a head to steal. One of these victims should be Scum and if it's the first person we pick between Ciato and Alex, we'll have gained a significant advantage and may not even need to eliminate the other person right away as we'll have stronger connections we can try to establish to the remaining Scum.

I still think Ciato is scummier than Alex due to her adverse reaction against Alex and that Tom's challenge really looks like a panic attack against Alex having possibly called out 2 Scum in one statement. Have Ciato die today to see if Alex really nailed it or not. If Ciato flips Town, then it's Alex's turn.

Cut by Cid: No mention of the role you were hinting at here. Granted, I don't really have a problem with you beating anyone today based on your content so maybe it will be worth it for you to take this one and get some hidden benefit or something.

[FinnKaenbyou]

I still really don't like Serp's claim that scummy players should challenge each other. His 'but maybe the players we THINK are Town are actually SCUM!' is out-and-out WIFOM. Definitely worth following when the current madness comes to a close.

Cid's 'Hey, maybe I should challenge them!' is also pretty bad. He offers Town an 'either you win or you don't' scenario without saying why we should trust HIM in particular.

And where the hell is K4U? She's been horribly inactive this game, and even there she hasn't helped. This doesn't read like she usually does.

Don't think Alice is much better in that regard. Then again, this game is weird in that lurkers are less likely to be scum because they need to get out there and win showdowns, so...:V

Anyway, still very much convinced that Ciato is scummier than Alex.

FakeVote: Town-Nominated player vs. Ciato

As for the nomination, I'd give it to Kiro myself.

[Bardiche]

I am growing increasingly wary of this proposition which would have us routinely eliminate all who've won anything, as by my knowledge this does not at all reset the killcount and strikes me as a fairly pointless exercise by this stage.

What seemed like a smashingly good idea now looks decidedly less so; in particular because it punishes town heavily for town VS town spats.

[Serp]

I still really don't like Serp's claim that scummy players should challenge each other. His 'but maybe the players we THINK are Town are actually SCUM!' is out-and-out WIFOM. Definitely worth following when the current madness comes to a close.

Two things I shouldn't have to point out:

1.  "But the players who you think are town may be scum" has absolutely nothing to do with WIFOM and that you say otherwise means you're grasping for buzzwords.

2.  Setting up today's match as Alex versus Ciato was also Kilga's last instruction as seen on page 10.  To say that advocating that strategy is scummy seems pretty stupid.

[Chaore]

Not enough time to really do anything I'd wanted to at the moment, I'm not about to say Ciato doesn't look pretty scummy, so I'm all for him being taken down. This does kind of put a dent in my 'Alex is scum' belief, though.

I also dislike Cid's proposition on the sheer fact that he is outright pretty much trying to get a kill here. I will state again this really doesn't benefit people that are not scum. Unless he is a limited charge cop or something like that. I mean, Bard's 'supposed' power itself seems pretty useless. Nothing to endeavor a kill for.

A Kiro nomination doesn't seem TOO bad as Rou suggests. He hasn't done much like mostly everyone, but he has done fairly good for what he has. I'd like people to reread whoever we choose before the duel goes off, at least.

[Jam-Kiske]

It seems possible/probable that winning challenges replenishes charges of limited use abilities?

Yes this is the case.

Despite the fact that Kilga suggested we have Ciato and Alex go against each other, I'm just not too sure it's the best idea. I don't really thing they're both scum as I don't think Tom would have put himself up against two scum as that would have made it possible for 2 scum to die and get no kills if he'd won the challenge. However, the fact that not everyone seems to agree on which ot Alex or Ciato is scum [as it seems that one of them must be or else Tom wouldn't have been so outright suicidal] we shouldn't put them against each other in case the disagreeing causes the scum to win.

Alex seems to be fairly reasonable and allowing us to kill him after Ciato so I'm going to say we should take her down first. If she flips town we should without a doubt take down Alex afterward.

We just need to decide on a super Townie to be the one to take her down.

[Bardiche]

I mean, Bard's 'supposed' power itself seems pretty useless.

You will soon receive a message that should hopefully remove that 'supposed' part of the argument.

Also it's TOTALLY worth killing for I could have random rants of great zeal and love.

[Bardiche]

Also fwiw I had one use of my power to start off with and was explicitly told I would get another use of it every time I'd win a duel.

I'm not sure if other roles demand you win a duel before getting powers, but it bears consideration: if Cop demanded this of you it'd be a gamble I'd be more than willing to take (provided we confirm the Cop afterwards; he only really needs to confirm one of us as town anyway).

[Bardiche]

Also of note: I don't think we actually have a Cop here who can just go out and Cop someone free-of-charge because that'd break the setup something fierce: get Cop to confirm someone, kill Cop to confirm alignment, then cruise control into "scum can't get victories".

[Kitten4u]

And where the hell is K4U? She's been horribly inactive this game, and even there she hasn't helped. This doesn't read like she usually does.

Stomach flu.  I considered requesting a replacement at the start of the game because of it but I realized that would make me lame, so I decided to stick with it.  I'm surprised I'm able to play at all tbh.

---

Anyway, I really can't make sense of this situation.  I've considered one of them being scum, both of them being scum and both of them being town, but no matter how I look at it Tom's actions make no sense at all.  So I'm going to go with the Occam's Razor approach here.  I'm going to assume that Tom used Kilga as a way to get a head.  That means that at least one of Ciato and Alex is scum.  However, since Tom was scum and there was only one townie to claim it would be pointless to put two scum on the opposing team.  So I'm going to assume that only one of Ciato and Alex is scum. 

So which is scum?  I'll admit that I have more problems with Alex individually. BUT, I think he's less likely to be scum with Tom.  Why?  There's really no reason for Tom to bring someone no one thought was suspicoius to the front if they were scum together.  Granted, scum do want to get involved since they need to win to get heads, but this seems like a really silly way to do it.  So, I'm going to say that Ciato is more likely to be scum (with tom) than Alex.

But I think Kiro's idea is better than Alex vs. Ciato since I could be wrong.  This situation makes no sense and I'm having a hard time reading it.

Or we could take a third option.  I can change the rules of the day to be like a normal game of Mafia (majority of votes = lynch etc.)  Whoever hammers will get a victory, but scum cannot hammer one of their buddies and get a victory (I already asked Carth for clarifacation on this).  If Ciato or Alex flip town we can look at the person that hammers more closely at least and if they flip scum...well they flip scum.  I can fire this off any time before the challenge phase starts, so we have plenty of time to discuss stuff still.  I'm not sure if this would be any better than Kiro's idea, but I figured I should throw it out there.

This is a one-shot ability, but I can use it more times if I win duels (ninja'd by people, but I figure I might as well confirm this myself anyway).  So, while I do see a pro-town reason for some people to want to challenge, I think people that volenteer themselves to be on the "winning" side should be looked at VERY closely.  I don't think anyone that volenteers themselves should be allowed to challenge unless they provide a compelling reason atm.

[Chaore]

Also of note: I don't think we actually have a Cop here who can just go out and Cop someone free-of-charge because that'd break the setup something fierce: get Cop to confirm someone, kill Cop to confirm alignment, then cruise control into "scum can't get victories".

I think it has been confirmed that Carth probably thought of this already. For one, get a scum on board 'complete townie' in a 2 v 2, And Scum can nab some heads before they hit clear out point. A single confirmed townie isn't worth too much, really. Also, God Mothers and Lawyers etc. Cops aren't fool proof, after all.

Ninja by Kitten: Well shit son.

Screw Messages, That takes the cake. And is pretty awesome. I'm not sure if we'll want to use it here or not, though.

Also confirms we probably don't have typical roles this time around. Damn.

[Bardiche]

I'd like to preserve that power: if the Hime Star shits all over us when we want to enact justice on another Pesco/Tom quick-challenger, we have a back-up to ensure that person and that person alone dies like they need to.

For clarification, does hammering constitute winning a duel?

[Kitten4u]

For clarification, does hammering constitute winning a duel?

Yes.  Though scum cannot claim a head if they hammer one of their scumbuddies.

[Bardiche]

SO if you'd hammer on using your power you'd regain another use of it?

[Kitten4u]

SO if you'd hammer on using your power you'd regain another use of it?

Oh you meant like that.  I *think* so, but I'll PM Carth just to make sure.

[MissCiato]

I basically stand by everything I said in Day 2; I have been playing Mafia with Alex for a very long time, and he frequently likes to push his own weight around. I basically disagree with treating players like crap and being rude to people in Mafia -- it's just a game, after all. I have never been able to get into the predatory nature of the game the way Alex does. I basically saw this as a scum sign because I have seen it done by him before.

I see no real logic in Tom's actions at all and upon trying to decipher them, I still see no real logic in them.

Alternatively, this could be some sort of weird setup/gambit where Tom thought he could kill two town with one stone? That's.... really stupid, too risky, and not really backed up by any sort of reasoning. I am starting to grow more and more suspicious that we're being set up to kill off townies or something since Rat declared...let me find it.

Rules clarification/patch: In the event that scum outnumber town, it will be assumed that scum automatically clean up the remaining townie heads and add them to their win total. This was sorta implied in the rules but not explicitly stated and there may be confusion with the 'games ends when someone wins' note, apologies.

If you set up lynches for town to die three days in a row... I dunno? I guess that depends on how many scum there are.

I don't really care what happens. I am pretty irritated with this game due to being dragged into something completely beyond my control and having to continually defend myself over an event that was completely beyond my control. This format sucks.