If anything I'm worried that this is a bit meta-gamey and could be against the rules. Would Lady Eri mind giving us a ruling on such shenanigans?
Nah, that's totally legit in Phalla.
Also, has anyone played Phalla with Thom before? He's not done much of anything--single posts with nothing but a vote and whatnot. Should he be more active? He's definitely around on the forums ([Chat] for example.)
I think this might be his first Phalla. Can't say for definite.
Still stuck on voting tonight. I think some of my suspicions come from the fact that the experienced people are posting a lot and then newbies are hardly posting at all and it all gets a bit mixed up.
Ah, thanks. I couldn't remember if Thom had played before. Still, I would have expected him to offer more comment or have a bigger presence in this game, simply by the fact that he's around all the time anyway.
And as for the experienced players posting and the newbies not... well, that's a well-known phenomenon. Mafia will often use that to their advantage, often coaching their newer or less-well-known members to simply "play the n00b" and post little or be confused (like LemmingHead has been each day) all the time to hide them.
One of my biggest issues with tie votes is that it is hard to make sure a tie vote is successful.
Not only will the mafia be actively working to insure this doesn't happen (as long as one of their members is involved in the time, otherwise they'd love it) but random people coming in at the last minute and dropping a vote so they dont get culled for inactivity could screw things up.
It walks too fine a line and the mafia will have too much influence for it to work effectively.
You're absolutely right--they're incredibly difficult to pull off successfully.
But, if we generally agree that we want to go with Tied Votes for 1st place, anyone who breaks that tie at the last minute becomes suspect. We can investigate them, their record and activity, and see what we make of it. It could be Mafia working to ensure one of their members doesn't die. It could be last-minute drive-by votes for activity purposes. It could be anything, but it definitely shines a giant spotlight on that player.
Also, if the Mafia do succeed in disrupting the tie (or anyone else messes it up), what have we lost? We only end up killing one person then, like we would have if we didn't attempt the tie in the first place. If they don't disrupt it, we kill two people we deemed suspicious enough to place into a tie to begin with.
I know it's generally the Mafia and Specials who hang around at vote close, so there may be a larger percentage of Mafia around to last-minute things than Villagers, but I know I'm a Villager and can be around for Vote Close for the next three nights (at least), so I don't know that the Mafia actually does have too much influence for it to work out. If that's the way we want to go.
Ties with a villager & mafia are hard to pull off, mafia can switch his vote or not at the last second (if they're willing to brave server busy and they have a stable connection you can post with ~5 seconds to go and be fine
Double mafia ties are even harder to pull off as they can both retract and then pile on whoever they want
And we can see that. Doing so is incredibly obvious, absolutely blatant, and visible for everyone to see.
If we keep suspicious people in the top four places, we don't really have much risk, since we suspected them anyway even if it trickles. Plus, if the Mafia are thwarting a tie, we'll just end up killing one of the two people we found most suspicious that day and then have a damned good reason to be suspicious of someone(s) the next.
Basically, if the main argument against intentionally tying the vote is that the Mafia could [easily] disrupt the tie, then I say great! That would be an incredibly damning action.
Of course, this only works if the majority of us decide that having a Tie is actually what we want to do. We're still just talking this idea out. If we don't decide that's what we, collectively, want to do, then someone who disrupts the tie can simply say they don't like ties, didn't think the risks were worth it, etc. and we don't actually have a very strong case.
=================
In other news, what's been suspicious to you guys? We need to communicate, here, and figure out who's suspicious of whom, why, and then decide whether or not that's a legitimate suspicion. Otherwise we're just shooting blindly in the dark, one player at a time.
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BobCescaIs a girlBirmingham, UKRegistered Userregular
edited July 2011
I'm totally reluctant to vote at the moment with the slim information there is, but it's 7pm over here and I'm not sure if I'll be back on the computer after dinner. So, !LemmingHead it is.
I haven't had a lot of time to comb back through the thread today (just started an internship), but I think we need to start looking at / voting off the barely active players. Daniant? Four posts. Greeper? Five. Fiaryn? Five. Element Brian, Jokerman, evilbob? All only five posts. The list of six post players is even longer. This shit is ridiculous.
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TurksonNear the mountains of ColoradoRegistered Userregular
edited July 2011
I think I'm at 6 posts. We may need to talk about the weekend and how it can screw up posting. I don't think I've ever been able to post on a Sunday by vote close time ever.
You know what's suspicious? The people voting early in the day for a random bandwagon then just leaving it cause they won't be back :P
Yup, that's another classic tactic.
The only thing to keep in mind there is the different timezones. Bob, for example, is in the UK.
(not that that would keep her from being a dirty Mafia, though)
Hiding in the barely active is a classic Mafia tactic, so it doesn't hurt to look there. Unfortunately, good Specials also play that way, so it can be hard to tell who's Mafia, who's a good Special, and who's just lame. romanqwerty was one of those barely-actives. You're right--we should look--it just can be dangerous.
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TurksonNear the mountains of ColoradoRegistered Userregular
edited July 2011
Looking back on "the list" being overactive also implicates you as mafia.
Looking back on "the list" being overactive also implicates you as mafia.
As does maintaining normal activity.
As does being named Kime.
"the list" is a joke :P
But yeah, a player who is overly active or barely-active compared to their normal playing style is suspicious.
For most people, it's difficult to determine a normal playing style, so judgements like that are hard to make. Generally, though, barely-actives are more of a hindrance for the Village than the overly-actives (unless they're being distracting).
Myself, for example--I always post lots. There have been games where I've died early and still had the most posts in the thread at the end, days later. TehSpectre is generally pretty active, too, if I recall. Usually the very active players draw attention simply due to the fact that they're in the thread, posting, and always "in sight" whereas the barely-actives are often forgotten or overlooked--that's why it's more common for Mafia to hide there than in the very active numbers.
Another thing that's important is to not only watch post-counts and vote records, but to pay attention to who's paying attention. cj iwakura, for example, wasn't noticeably active, but he was definitely paying attention, and around at the "right" times (Vote Close, for example).
Usually, my play style is to be super chatty, but this phalla I have been slipping because it is on a board I do not frequent as much. Also I was in vegas all weekend.
I think we should also not forget that there are server errors that are preventing people from posting. I can't tell you how many times in this game I've had something ready to post, and then had a server error and since I had no time to go back and re-write what I've written, have had to say fuck it and leave it.
Now I copy everything I post so that I can paste it an re-post, but even then it doesn't clear up for me in a timely manner. It's hurting my PbP D&D games too.
Sorry, just needed to bitch a little. I'll be analyzing votes soon.
P.S. It happened with this very post!
The following errors occurred with your submission
The server is too busy at the moment. Please try again later.
I think we should also not forget that there are server errors that are preventing people from posting. I can't tell you how many times in this game I've had something ready to post, and then had a server error and since I had no time to go back and re-write what I've written, have had to say fuck it and leave it.
Now I copy everything I post so that I can paste it an re-post, but even then it doesn't clear up for me in a timely manner. It's hurting my PbP D&D games too.
Sorry, just needed to bitch a little. I'll be analyzing votes soon.
P.S. It happened with this very post!
The following errors occurred with your submission
The server is too busy at the moment. Please try again later.
Switch to Chrome. It caches your post, and you just have to hit F5 in the "Server busy" window until it resubmits. No more post loss!
I've never had Firefox eat a post, either. Just F5 until it refreshes and it actually posts the post, or brings me back to what I was typing. Hitting "back" also takes me back and has the fields filled in with what I typed.
But yes, the server issues have slowed some people down, I'm sure.
If anything I'm worried that this is a bit meta-gamey and could be against the rules. Would Lady Eri mind giving us a ruling on such shenanigans?
Nah, that's totally legit in Phalla.
Also, has anyone played Phalla with Thom before? He's not done much of anything--single posts with nothing but a vote and whatnot. Should he be more active? He's definitely around on the forums ([Chat] for example.)
It is my first and I'm doing a lot of observing and wondering. So perhaps I should share some of what I know. I know Cass (Dread Pirate) was one of our vigilantes. I know that she was forming a network. I know her, myself and Elldren were part of that network but I don't know if anyone else was. Given the mafia's effectiveness on that day's voting, I suspect that network was compromised. It's possible it was random chance but I consider that unlikely. I suspect that reconstructing that network will expose one possibly more mafia members. Of course as one of the network's members, that does cast suspicion on me.
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Element BrianPeanut Butter ShillRegistered Userregular
I tend to agree with Lemminghead for now, as much as I hate to do so. Aside from reasons mentioned, I'm inclined to think that the attack on Savant likely meant that the mafia had a member that was in warban's game. As meta as that is...
I had put some thought into this earlier that was a bit conspiracy theorist. That with kuhlmeye putting a vote on her, it could in theory be incentive for the mafia wanting to see him die. Since if lh was ever found out, and was mafia. Then that (semi clears) would have semi-cleared kuhl.
If CJ's TehSpectre vote was to draw attention away from the kuhl votes.. It could be something of sorts.
Granted this is all a bizarro hypothesis . Based on gut feeling.
If anything I'm worried that this is a bit meta-gamey and could be against the rules. Would Lady Eri mind giving us a ruling on such shenanigans?
Nah, that's totally legit in Phalla.
Also, has anyone played Phalla with Thom before? He's not done much of anything--single posts with nothing but a vote and whatnot. Should he be more active? He's definitely around on the forums ([Chat] for example.)
It is my first and I'm doing a lot of observing and wondering. So perhaps I should share some of what I know. I know Cass (Dread Pirate) was one of our vigilantes. I know that she was forming a network. I know her, myself and Elldren were part of that network but I don't know if anyone else was. Given the mafia's effectiveness on that day's voting, I suspect that network was compromised. It's possible it was random chance but I consider that unlikely. I suspect that reconstructing that network will expose one possibly more mafia members. Of course as one of the network's members, that does cast suspicion on me.
Ah, well welcome to Phalla, then. :P
Also, this is the good kind of talking we should be doing--we don't have Seer, so we can't rely on some back-room planning and some secretive network to save us. We've got to figure this out on our own now (for the most part), and the best way to do that is to actually discuss things, sharing the information we have.
If CJ's TehSpectre vote was to draw attention away from the kuhl votes.. It could be something of sorts.
Granted this is all a bizarro hypothesis . Based on gut feeling.
What's this all about, here? Like, what are you meaning?
As stated it's a bit of a bizarro theory. As noted kuhlmeye voted for lh. If lh happens to be guilty. Then it would make some sense that another member may want to distract from how easily she jumped on kuhlmeye or something similar. Yet at the same time , if it was seen that the TehSpectre wagon wouldn't take, and if LH is guilty others may jump on later at some point to ensure that kuhl died (granted this assuming if LH is guilty).
As stated this is theoretical based on....largely Savant killing LH in warban's game. And perhaps a "Savant is crafty" mentality. That I'm auto assuming someone in that game is in the mafia.
edit: except for the meta stuff. It's mostly theoretical , if it pans out 'how knowledge could be gained' I suppose.
Wait, so cj iwakura voted for TehSpectre (the first vote in Day 2 of what became a little wagon on TehSpectre) to keep people from noticing that LemmingHead was the 3rd person to vote for kuhlmeye at the beginning of the day? That's basically what you're meaning?
Wait, so cj iwakura voted for TehSpectre (the first vote in Day 2 of what became a little wagon on TehSpectre) to keep people from noticing that LemmingHead was the 3rd person to vote for kuhlmeye at the beginning of the day? That's basically what you're meaning?
Long story short, yes. Basically what kuhlmeye was pointing out. But as I said , or hinted at when I said it "depends on how it pans out" , it is circumstantial.
Wait, so cj iwakura voted for TehSpectre (the first vote in Day 2 of what became a little wagon on TehSpectre) to keep people from noticing that LemmingHead was the 3rd person to vote for kuhlmeye at the beginning of the day? That's basically what you're meaning?
Long story short, yes. Basically what kuhlmeye was pointing out. But as I said , or hinted at when I said it "depends on how it pans out" , it is circumstantial.
So if we keel Lemminghead, and she's Mafia, then we know some more stuff. *blatant*
If anything I'm worried that this is a bit meta-gamey and could be against the rules. Would Lady Eri mind giving us a ruling on such shenanigans?
Nah, that's totally legit in Phalla.
Also, has anyone played Phalla with Thom before? He's not done much of anything--single posts with nothing but a vote and whatnot. Should he be more active? He's definitely around on the forums ([Chat] for example.)
It is my first and I'm doing a lot of observing and wondering. So perhaps I should share some of what I know. I know Cass (Dread Pirate) was one of our vigilantes. I know that she was forming a network. I know her, myself and Elldren were part of that network but I don't know if anyone else was. Given the mafia's effectiveness on that day's voting, I suspect that network was compromised. It's possible it was random chance but I consider that unlikely. I suspect that reconstructing that network will expose one possibly more mafia members. Of course as one of the network's members, that does cast suspicion on me.
See, this is probably something that someone should have told me about earlier. I had no idea that cass was soft networking with anyone, which frankly was probably not a very good idea being one of only two vigilantes in a game with relatively few specials. If someone had told me that I would have found her position a lot more precarious than I thought it was which could have prevented her death last night.
Ugh, it's hard for me to be effective when I got misled so much.
Edit: Server is busy is getting really annoying for the past few days.
Yeah, something got messed up in the networking. Knowing some of who was involved may help us sniff out suspects, though.
(Just want to be careful about revealing too much information and costing us our remaining Specials.)
Well if the mafia compromised that soft network, then they knew more about it than me or most of the village, and cass is dead so there's not much need to really hide it. Of course, if thomas or elldren had mentioned this to me privately earlier instead of blabbing about it in the thread after it is too late I could have kept it on the down low, but too late for that!
Anyway, in other news, do any of the people currently around have any opinions on intentionally tying the #1 Vote spot? There's been discussion of the idea throughout today that's probably worth reviewing and commenting on.
Posts
Ah, thanks. I couldn't remember if Thom had played before. Still, I would have expected him to offer more comment or have a bigger presence in this game, simply by the fact that he's around all the time anyway.
And as for the experienced players posting and the newbies not... well, that's a well-known phenomenon. Mafia will often use that to their advantage, often coaching their newer or less-well-known members to simply "play the n00b" and post little or be confused (like LemmingHead has been each day) all the time to hide them.
Ties with a villager & mafia are hard to pull off, mafia can switch his vote or not at the last second (if they're willing to brave server busy and they have a stable connection you can post with ~5 seconds to go and be fine
Double mafia ties are even harder to pull off as they can both retract and then pile on whoever they want
If we keep suspicious people in the top four places, we don't really have much risk, since we suspected them anyway even if it trickles. Plus, if the Mafia are thwarting a tie, we'll just end up killing one of the two people we found most suspicious that day and then have a damned good reason to be suspicious of someone(s) the next.
Of course, this only works if the majority of us decide that having a Tie is actually what we want to do. We're still just talking this idea out. If we don't decide that's what we, collectively, want to do, then someone who disrupts the tie can simply say they don't like ties, didn't think the risks were worth it, etc. and we don't actually have a very strong case.
=================
In other news, what's been suspicious to you guys? We need to communicate, here, and figure out who's suspicious of whom, why, and then decide whether or not that's a legitimate suspicion. Otherwise we're just shooting blindly in the dark, one player at a time.
Confusion will be my epitaph
Confusion will be my epitaph
Yup, that's another classic tactic.
The only thing to keep in mind there is the different timezones. Bob, for example, is in the UK.
(not that that would keep her from being a dirty Mafia, though)
Hiding in the barely active is a classic Mafia tactic, so it doesn't hurt to look there. Unfortunately, good Specials also play that way, so it can be hard to tell who's Mafia, who's a good Special, and who's just lame. romanqwerty was one of those barely-actives. You're right--we should look--it just can be dangerous.
As does maintaining normal activity.
As does being named Kime.
True.
She's only got 8 posts in the thread (1 was to sign up), too.
"the list" is a joke :P
But yeah, a player who is overly active or barely-active compared to their normal playing style is suspicious.
For most people, it's difficult to determine a normal playing style, so judgements like that are hard to make. Generally, though, barely-actives are more of a hindrance for the Village than the overly-actives (unless they're being distracting).
Myself, for example--I always post lots. There have been games where I've died early and still had the most posts in the thread at the end, days later. TehSpectre is generally pretty active, too, if I recall. Usually the very active players draw attention simply due to the fact that they're in the thread, posting, and always "in sight" whereas the barely-actives are often forgotten or overlooked--that's why it's more common for Mafia to hide there than in the very active numbers.
Another thing that's important is to not only watch post-counts and vote records, but to pay attention to who's paying attention. cj iwakura, for example, wasn't noticeably active, but he was definitely paying attention, and around at the "right" times (Vote Close, for example).
Now I copy everything I post so that I can paste it an re-post, but even then it doesn't clear up for me in a timely manner. It's hurting my PbP D&D games too.
Sorry, just needed to bitch a little. I'll be analyzing votes soon.
P.S. It happened with this very post!
Zithra Melitch in Star Wars: An Empire's End
Jellica in In the Shadow of Zeus
Switch to Chrome. It caches your post, and you just have to hit F5 in the "Server busy" window until it resubmits. No more post loss!
But yes, the server issues have slowed some people down, I'm sure.
!LemmingHead, as I have little input to offer until I have slept.
It is my first and I'm doing a lot of observing and wondering. So perhaps I should share some of what I know. I know Cass (Dread Pirate) was one of our vigilantes. I know that she was forming a network. I know her, myself and Elldren were part of that network but I don't know if anyone else was. Given the mafia's effectiveness on that day's voting, I suspect that network was compromised. It's possible it was random chance but I consider that unlikely. I suspect that reconstructing that network will expose one possibly more mafia members. Of course as one of the network's members, that does cast suspicion on me.
Arch,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_goGR39m2k
Lazarus is amazing, I wish they had a reliable extension for chrome.
Element's posts strike me as super suspicious.
I had put some thought into this earlier that was a bit conspiracy theorist. That with kuhlmeye putting a vote on her, it could in theory be incentive for the mafia wanting to see him die. Since if lh was ever found out, and was mafia. Then that (semi clears) would have semi-cleared kuhl.
If CJ's TehSpectre vote was to draw attention away from the kuhl votes.. It could be something of sorts.
Granted this is all a bizarro hypothesis . Based on gut feeling.
Ah, well welcome to Phalla, then. :P
Also, this is the good kind of talking we should be doing--we don't have Seer, so we can't rely on some back-room planning and some secretive network to save us. We've got to figure this out on our own now (for the most part), and the best way to do that is to actually discuss things, sharing the information we have.
Oh come on, EB. You know better than that. At least make an attempt at explaining your vote? It seems all the worse, knowing I am a Villager.
Exactly.
Elldren
What's this all about, here? Like, what are you meaning?
As stated it's a bit of a bizarro theory. As noted kuhlmeye voted for lh. If lh happens to be guilty. Then it would make some sense that another member may want to distract from how easily she jumped on kuhlmeye or something similar. Yet at the same time , if it was seen that the TehSpectre wagon wouldn't take, and if LH is guilty others may jump on later at some point to ensure that kuhl died (granted this assuming if LH is guilty).
As stated this is theoretical based on....largely Savant killing LH in warban's game. And perhaps a "Savant is crafty" mentality. That I'm auto assuming someone in that game is in the mafia.
edit: except for the meta stuff. It's mostly theoretical , if it pans out 'how knowledge could be gained' I suppose.
On Day 2, LemmingHead voted for kuhlmeye (after TehSpectre and Dread Pirate Arbuthnot had). Just after that, kuhlmeye voted for LemmingHead.
What I'm not following is your assertion that it makes sense for another Mafia member to distract from how easily she jumped on kuhlmeye, and so on.
I'm not following how the TehSpectre almost-wagon plays here.
I'm more trying to understand what you're saying than saying that I think you're wrong.
Long story short, yes. Basically what kuhlmeye was pointing out. But as I said , or hinted at when I said it "depends on how it pans out" , it is circumstantial.
So if we keel Lemminghead, and she's Mafia, then we know some more stuff. *blatant*
See, this is probably something that someone should have told me about earlier. I had no idea that cass was soft networking with anyone, which frankly was probably not a very good idea being one of only two vigilantes in a game with relatively few specials. If someone had told me that I would have found her position a lot more precarious than I thought it was which could have prevented her death last night.
Ugh, it's hard for me to be effective when I got misled so much.
Edit: Server is busy is getting really annoying for the past few days.
(Just want to be careful about revealing too much information and costing us our remaining Specials.)
Well if the mafia compromised that soft network, then they knew more about it than me or most of the village, and cass is dead so there's not much need to really hide it. Of course, if thomas or elldren had mentioned this to me privately earlier instead of blabbing about it in the thread after it is too late I could have kept it on the down low, but too late for that!
Anyway, in other news, do any of the people currently around have any opinions on intentionally tying the #1 Vote spot? There's been discussion of the idea throughout today that's probably worth reviewing and commenting on.