Bizarro Mafia: It's over! Who won?

[Jedo the Jedi]

BIZARRO MAFIA

Welcome to the game where everything is topsy-turvy! John McCain is President of the United States, Target is the leading superstore, the Buffalo Bills Miami Dolphins are the defending Super Bowl champs, and Jedo is the smartest person on the Grey Labyrinth. We hope you will enjoy your stay here.

Living in the Land of the Bizarre (1/13):
11. Quailman, Mafia - Victor!

Returned to Reality:
9. Lifeinmomland, Vanilla Townie - Killed Day 1
8. Undercover Monk, Vanilla Townie - Killed Day 2
13. 3iff, Mafia Goon - Lynched Night 2
10. cloudRunner, Doctor - Killed Day 3
5. bgg1996, Mafia Goon - Lynched Night 3
12. MNOWAX, Tracker - Killed Day 4
6. Zag, Vanilla Townie - Lynched Night 4
4. Lucresia Apple Sause, Vanilla Townie - Killed Day 5
3. Ctorj, Vanilla Townie - Lynched Night 5
7. Garou_Kinfolk, Vanilla Townie - Killed Day 6
1. Amb, Vanilla Townie - Lynched Night 6
2. Sentran, Vanilla Townie - Endgamed Day 7

Cast into Oblivion (Modkilled):
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Paragon Tally: 18 mafia, 3 SKs (1 twice), 1 cultist, numerous chat scum...and counting.

[Jedo the Jedi]

RULES (stolen and modified from Kdub)

General Rules
A1) The mod's decisions are final.
A2) If you feel that I have made a mistake or otherwise have questions, you may send me a PM or post a bolded message in thread like this: Mod: (message).
A3) You may not discuss this game outside of the game thread unless your role allows you to do so.
A4) You may not discuss other games still in progress in the game thread.
A5) If you are dead, you are allowed one “Bah!” post, but you may not post any content or communicate with living players about the game.
A6) You may not quote or pretend to quote private communications with the mod or other players. You may paraphrase, but you should check with me first if you are unsure if you are crossing the line.
A7) You may not post in invisible text, encrypted text, or any other form of communication that is intended not to be easily read by all players.
A8) You may not edit any posts.
A9) Please do not post in blue text.
A10) If you are modkilled, you lose the game, even if your faction eventually wins. I will decide whether modkills end the day.
A11) If you want to do something which you think might break the rules, PM the mod and ask first.
A12) I reserve the right to add rules or make exceptions to any existing rules if I feel there is a situation that requires the mod to intervene.

Special Rules: Voting
B1) Votes must be PMed to the mod.
B2) You may change your vote until the deadline for Day.
B3) There is no lynch majority. The person with the most votes at the start of Day will be lynched.
B4) You may vote No Lynch in place of a person.

Special Rules: Deadlines and Activity
C1) Deadline for day will be 1 week + the length of Rule C2. This may be extended by popular vote for a maximum length of 2 weeks.
C2) Days will end 72 hours after the mafia kill is resolved.
C3) Deadline for night will be 48 hours. Players may submit their night vote early if they wish.
C4) The official vote count will be posted in the morning with the lynch.
C5) I will try to prod players when they have not posted for 48 hours. Players may also request prods on other players. All prods will be announced in thread.
C6) If a player does not respond to a prod within 48 hours, or if they need to be prodded too often, they will be replaced. This will be up to the discretion of the mod.
C7) If you will be unable to post for over 48 hours, inform the mod through PM or in the game thread. All V/LA notifications will be made public by the mod unless the player has already done so.

Special Rules: Action Submissions
D1) Action submissions occur during the Day.
D2) The mafia kill may occur any time after 48 hours from start of Day. Once the mafia kill has occurred, there will be 72 hours for discussion before the end of Day. (see rule C2)
D3) The town PRs may submit their action at any time, but they should be aware that the mafia may get their kill in early. The town PRs should therefore submit their actions in a timely manner.
D4) Actions may be pre-submitted for the following Day phase and will count as being submitted immediately at the start of that Day.
D5) Natural Action Resolution will be used to resolve multiple actions that would otherwise resolve simultaneously.
D6) During the "twilight" period between the end of Day deadline and when the mod officially ends the Day, players may continue to post.

Sportsmanship
E1) Remember, mafia is a team game. Always play to you win condition.
E2) Do not invoke external non-mafia factors (i.e. threats, wagers, or demands not related to this game) in an attempt to influence the game.
E3) Avoid personal attacks on other players.
E4) Treat this game as a commitment and try to stay active out of fairness to the other players.

Other Notes About Setup
F1) Mafia may only discuss privately from the start of Night until the resolution of their kill the next day.
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Paragon Tally: 18 mafia, 3 SKs (1 twice), 1 cultist, numerous chat scum...and counting.

[Jedo the Jedi]

IMPORTANT! This is an open setup: 3 mafia, 1 tracker, 1 doc, 8 vanilla townies.

I have received enough confirmations. Let the games begin!
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Paragon Tally: 18 mafia, 3 SKs (1 twice), 1 cultist, numerous chat scum...and counting.

[3iff]

HI, seems I'm the first here...now to wait for MNO to leap in and accuse me of controlling the game...on, 3..2..1...

While I'm waiting, I'll try and get a grip on the rules.

[Zag]

That was great, 3iff. But, of course, the accusation will be Q accusing me.

Jeez, I hate the beginning of the first day. Those of you who find vacillating and being unsure to be a scum tell, you might as well just lynch me now. I am going to remain unsure and will certainly vacillate for a while.

[Undercover Monk]

This will be an interesting expirience. The beauty of this set-up is it takes away the randomn day 1 crap. after the first kill i suggest we dont formulate a plan. just vote who you think is scum the vote count will give us some much needed information going into the first day of real discussion.
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The Classic Blunders:
1. never get involved in a land war in Asia
2.Never go in against a Sicilian when DEATH is on the line
3. Never release Peyton Manning

[Amb]

And yet you dont like Deep South mafia, which is very very similar :-p

[Sentran]

I have no idea how to proceed on this one.
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Sentran
"Speaking of double negatives, I haven't read greylab yet today." - Lifeinmomland

[Lifeinmomland]

Well, at least we are all confused.

My understanding of this so far seems to be... we talk during the day... send our votes to the Mod during the night phase? And see who we lynched in the morning?
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Who is John Gult?

[Zag]

I agree. If voting is done at night, what's the point of talking, at least on the first day. We can't even have the (generally uninformative, except to tell us that MNO is crazy) early bandwagons.

I'm feeling reluctant to talk at all, worried that anything I say could be something that someone else imagines is a scum tell. (Including this!) But I guess we've no shot if we don't all say something... and push the others to, as well. I think that everyone should have to say something (original) about the setup. I'm guessing that this subject will have the best chance of someone saying something that he learned that we townies wouldn't know. I've fulfilled this obligation, above, and I'll challenge the rest of you to do so, as well.

[Lifeinmomland]

B2) You may change your vote until the deadline for Day.

That is the rule that has me lost. The one that makes me thing we vote during night phase. Or does he mean the Day we are in?
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Who is John Gult?

[Amb]

[Amb]

Mod Question
C4) The official vote count will be posted in the morning with the lynch.

Will this include the names of who voted who at the end?

[Jedo the Jedi]

Mom, that means you can change your mind up until the Night (voting phase) ends. This happens quite frequently.

Amb, I will post a full vote count as I would in a normal game, the votes just won't be in order like Zag usually prefers.
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Paragon Tally: 18 mafia, 3 SKs (1 twice), 1 cultist, numerous chat scum...and counting.

[Garou_Kinfolk]

At this point it's hard to say who to vote for (the whole lack of info thing).

If you find the theme confusing, just keep in mind it's probably Bizzaro World from Superman.
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Most posts made from my phone.

[Quailman]

MOD: B3) There is no lynch majority. The person with the most votes at the start of Day will be lynched.

What happens in the event of a tie?

{Not for Mod} These rules are indeed Bizarro. Has night voting been tried before? Anyone else here played in one?

[MNOWAX]

i dunno, but 3iff is leading this game, and zag is scum... did i hit everything correctly?
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The Man The Myth The Legend
MNOWAX

[Garou_Kinfolk]

[Zag]

[Amb]

I could be way off here, but I understand the scum will kill during the day, and then 72 hours later night will fall - and then we vote? Bizarro is the codeword for no-oneknowsowhattheyaredoing-o.

[Jedo the Jedi]

Quailman, a No Lynch would occur.

I sure do miss mod powers...
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Paragon Tally: 18 mafia, 3 SKs (1 twice), 1 cultist, numerous chat scum...and counting.

[Lucresia]

Well I think I am also about as confused as everyone else here. I am intrigued though but I am not sure how I can go about scum hunting right now with no voting pattern and no activity to talk about.

Then again based on the rules it looks like the mafia can make their kill after a certain time into the day which is now..then we will have something to talk about before night..where we vote to lynch? :/ Def. Bizarro. It's like having a "sunrise" as opposed to a "twilight".
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"And All anybody knows, is you're not like them" -Elliott Smith

[3iff]

[3iff]

Mod: Can you please indicate when is the first deadline. Thanks.

I'm sure everyone would appreciate knowing how long we have before votes are counted. I know I would.

[Jedo the Jedi]

Day will end Thursday, November 24 at 12:00a (barring the mafia kill). I'll post a countdown from now on.
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Paragon Tally: 18 mafia, 3 SKs (1 twice), 1 cultist, numerous chat scum...and counting.

[Quailman]

I can't place random votes, so I guess all I can do is say blah blah blah, I think I'll vote for Zag tonight, blah blah blah...

That's not binding, so I can vote for whozagever I want to.

Of course, if I vote for him and he doesn't get lynched, he'll find out I voted for him in the morning.

[Zag]

Q, I'm so surprised.

[MNOWAX]

Then it's only Zag, it doesn't matter what if you're alphabetically first OR last.

I know where my vote is going....
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The Man The Myth The Legend
MNOWAX

[Sentran]

Well, let's see here...
My current options, barring some faux pas by the mafia, are few.
1. Vote for experienced and intelligent players. This could be a good idea if they're mafia, but if they turn town, I will be weakening the overall game.
2. Vote for inexperienced players. Again, it's a crap shoot as to whether or not I will hit mafia. The loss of a newer player would be less detrimental to town than the loss of an experienced player, but the continued existence of an experienced mafia player is more potentially damaging than that of a new player.
3. Vote for lurkers. This one appeals to me greatly. Even more than normal since Jedo can not contradict said argument this game. This is probably the route I'll take.
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Sentran
"Speaking of double negatives, I haven't read greylab yet today." - Lifeinmomland

[Lifeinmomland]

Um... My twilight marathon induced coma has yet to lift....
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Who is John Gult?

[Garou_Kinfolk]

[Zag]

... or vote for someone willing to watch sparkly vampires and pathetic, helpless female leads.

I struggle to see how the town has any hope, here, at least for the first few days. The Mafia get to coordinate their votes, while the town's votes are scattered. As town, I think we'd be best off agreeing all to vote for someone randomly chosen with a dice roll. At least then we have a chance of lynching a mafia.

On the other hand, if the random choice is a townie, then the mafia can freely vote for him without revealing themselves.

OK, it was a bad idea. But I think that there's little chance of hitting a scum tonight. Q and MNO already say they plan to vote for me, giving them cover if they are scum and giving the scum a free vote or two if they aren't. The scum just need two of their members to add on and it's a lock. There's very little chance that the random scattering of townies will exceed that.

I guess I'm willing to follow Sentran's lead, and try to lynch lurkers. The problem is that mafia are hardly ever true lurkers; smart mafia should (especially in this game) try to talk just enough to be distinctly above the lurkers. And since I think that they are able to communicate right now, if I understand the rules correctly, they can wake each other up if needed. So even though the lurkers are less useful to town, I think that they typically are town, or at least will be in this game.

There's still no answer on whether or not we expect a kill today. Assuming there is, the rule F1 says that mafia can communicate until the resolution of their kill, so I assume that they are talking now. MNO, would you care to share any of the conversation with us?

(For the record, I'm kidding. I don't have any actual suspicions at all. All I can imagine as a town strategy is to look for clusters of votes when townies get lynched, but it's not going to be very reliable. I give this advice now out of fear that I won't be around tomorrow to do so.)

[Quailman]

I can't believe it, but I agree with Zag. I don't like a no-lynch in the event of a tie, but it's too much work for the mod to figure out when the votes came in and lynch the first to X. (Though I think the last vote timewise that was placed for one of the tied candidates would tend to save his ass). OTOH, the timeing of vote PMs is dependent on availability when night falls, i.e., during a weekend vs. a weekday.

Other alternative would be to speed up the game and lynch them both (all). I don't like this alternative either.

bah! I'm already too confused from trying to think about this topsy-turvy game.

[Zag]

I agree that it doesn't make any difference when the votes came in, since they aren't reacting to each other, anyway.

I'd be happy with a random choice between members of a tie for first. I might make a restriction that it has to be a tie of 1/4 or more of the total votes, perhaps, just to prevent a 6-way 2-votes-each tie from meaning someone dies.

[Amb]

Why dont we dice roll. The person whose number comes up, selects the lynchee and we vote for that person. At least for the first couple of votes that will stop the mafia coordinating their votes with ours scattered. And the vote target can argue why they arent scum, or why the person whose number came up might be? Youd only want to do it for a couple of days/

[Zag]

Well, that's worse than my idea, because if we roll a townie, we're just getting a random choice, and if we roll a scum, we're definitely going to be lynching a townie.

However, I still think it is a bad idea because the most likely event is that we'll lynch a townie AND we won't learn anything. The small chance of lynching a scum does not offset the fact that we don't learn a thing from the lynching, because the scum can just vote with the group.

[Amb]

No, if you roll a townie, they stand a chance of lynching mafia. If you roll a mafia, you get something to analyse later when or if they die. Its not a great plan, sure, but its a plan. And at the moment, we are near guaranteed to lynch town by secret ballot. At least the other way we have a chance. I doubt there is much of a strategy to this game: Short of a mafia screw up, they should coast - especially once they hit the tracker.

[MNOWAX]

[Amb]

SLightly different, if we dice roll say Zag, then he chooses the lynch candidate. So he might choose me. I then have the choice of accepting it, or going down fighting. It might be a good idea to have 2 candidates in case the mafia kill the first candidate to scatter the votes.

[Zag]

I disagree with that approach. Why do you think that you learn anything more than just voting for the random roll.

Say we roll you. You pick a person

The most likely event is that that person turns out to be town. Everyone votes for that person. We've learned nothing. You might have been scum intentionally picking town, or somewhat more likely, you're just another townie picking at random. However, we learn nothing by looking at the votes because every voted for him.

Who's going to accept being the designated target? Nobody. Anyone is going to "go down fighting," as you say. But what do you really mean by that. Whomever is picked is going to say, "No, I'm not scum, I'm a townie," and then he will attack you for choosing him. Now where are you? Do you believe that you can tell by how they say it whether or not they are telling the truth. In person, maybe, but not in text.

If we just let what's going to happen happen, then the mafia has two bad choices. Either they cluster their votes to ensure that the lynchee is a townie, or they don't. If they do, then they get a townie lynched but we have some information. When we see the same cluster the next night, then it identifies who the scum are. Or, if they choose not to cluster their votes, then they are as likely to be lynched as not.