Mason Codes

[mith]

In Newbie Mafia 4, I was a Mason with Degenerate, Endymion's Fall, and ralphmerridew. Since I had been confirmed as an innocent, and was likely to be killed (I never was, though), I decided to come up with codes so that each of the masons could independently defend themselves without having to rely on backup from the other Masons. The following are 4 replies in the thread. They may or may not be relevant to the codes, but all three members are in there somewhere. Can you figure out how the codes worked? (Note: I expcet this to be very very difficult, as the methods I used were quite random and bizarre. There is also a lot of fluff that has nothing to do with the codes.)

Reply 485:

(The following may or may not have anything to do with the Mason codes. I will post several of these.)

Everyone is a critic. Don't believe in my encryption abilities? Just remember, my usual MO involves complex mathematics or similar things. The Mafia can kill, but they can't use this against the town. Trust me.

How about you try to solve, for me. Let's see if you are capable of finding he who is here. I am sure you're safe now.

Now, anybody save me?

(More random babbling later, when I am inspired)

Reply 487:

Vote: Digglu

90-123248-12823-4576-3144832-381030-19328834-30-2999-232

Reply 488:

a - t-D
b - Y-e
c - s-&
d - 5-t
e - f-9
f - #-1
g - h-R
h - (-r
i - e-p
j - R-{
k - T-2
l - s-g
m - q-D
n - Q-r
o - 8-*
p - h-j
q - !-d
r - 2-R
s - L-i
t - C-C
u - t-g
v - m-E
w - ;-d
x - A-#
y - i-s
z - O-G

Reply 492:

Um, the argument against Degenerate makes no sense. Even though I agree that we can't assume that Digglu is innocent or guilty (based on what AB said, I mean), why would AB try to get Degenerate lynched if Degenerate were Mafia? My vote stays with Digglu

444986906
121809114
498636631
321684813
477879222
463170280
006648998
511135672
074761599

[Antrax]

Regardless of the puzzle, I think this should be banned. It effectively lets groups communicate at day, where the rules forbid it.
Antrax

------------------
I'm cool, really

[mith]

I do think it makes the Masons more powerful, but it doesn't have anything to do with communicating during the day. The Masons can't really gain anything be communicating during the day anyway.

What it does do is allow Masons to defend themselves without coming out as a group. But, to use it, either one of the Masons would have to reveal himself, or they'd have to be smart enough to slip something in somewhere that doesn't look out of place. Should it be banned? Maybe, but I don't think the current rules forbid it (obviously, or I wouldn't have done it).

[Antrax]

hence the SHOULD BE. Maybe we oughta start a discussion about it sometime.
Antrax

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I'm cool, really

[Samadhi]

I must be missing something because I don't see what would prevent mafia from BSing the same tactic, which would have the net effect of making the tactic fruitless. Of course, as Antrax said maybe we oughta start a discussion.

[CrystyB]

wasn't Newbie Maf supposed to be for newbies only???

[Zealot]

mith, DP, and Antrax joined to bring it up to an even 20.

[Acer]

They are precedents for this:

Mafia 39, post 418 by mudster

quote:

---

I have to hand it to you guys. The Bandwagon(TM) is going around again.

Ok I admit that I lied. But I won't go down without a fight!

I felt that if I lied I was a doctor nobody would lynch me.
Mole and Chien Fou are NOT cops.
But I guess it is too late now to reveal my true role. Bah.

---

Pokemafia, post 70 by me:

[ralphmerridew]

In Discworld Mafia, I think Ferris was posting comments about "drag on" to show he'd found that mudster was the dragon.

[Luna]

Ah, right. It took me forever to get the concept of this. It's not "communicating during the day" - there aren't coded messages in there saying "Luna is mafia, let's lynch her ass" or anything. What is in there in some coded form of, say, Endymion's Fall's name, so that once mith is dead/confirmed innocent, Endymion can if necessary come out and say "Don't lynch me, I'm a mason. Want proof? Look what mith hid in this post." That way, he can prove his mason status without further lodge members having to come out and back him up, thus putting themselves at risk. It does, as mith said, make the masons more powerful, but it doesn't "allow them to communicate during the day" at all.

Whether it should be allowed is a different argument altogether. Depends how strong you want the mason group to be, I guess.

[Antrax]

Oh. I thought he encoded messages in there. ~always sucked at cryptics~
I still don't like it, by the way. But it's less terrible now.
Antrax

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I'm cool, really

[ralphmerridew]

He did encode messages in there. Those messages said "ralphmerridew is mason", "Endymion's Fall is a mason", and "Degenerate is a mason", and they were directed to the other people in the game.

In fact, I didn't learn how to read the messages until he told us that night, when the masons can normally communicate.

[Sofis]

I think it should be allowed, and normal communication by code as well. It seems like a silly restriction - if DP and jesternl were to find themselves masons together in some game, should they then not be allowed to post in Dutch because the other players won't understand? If the masons want to device some sort of code for daytime communication, let them. Any code deviced for such purposes is likely to be very conspicuous or very limited, so it's not as if it would be all that useful anyway.

[Ferris]

Glad it was noticed.

Whenever I've got a role that isn't town or mafia, I try to include a little hidden clue like that - I know I'm not the only one who does that, either.

Which is another reason why it's really important not to edit posts in the game - otherwise you can't later say, "Look back at that post where I cunningly hid 'I'm a cop' - don't lynch me!".

[cubestudent]

Samadhi: what would prevent the mafia from copying the tactic and rendering it invalid is based on the fact that the whole thing is based on the encoder being dead, and thus identified.

mith was clearly found to be trustworthy after he died and the moderator said he was a mason. thus, the messages he's encoded would be trustworthy, and proof that player X was in fact a mason as well.

any messages encoded within a dead mafioso's posts would not be trustworthy.

[Zealot]

Well, mith never died, first of all, all we had to go on was a cop's assurance of his innocence. We discussed at length in the game why the mafia wouldn't try to exploit the codes if mith did die. If the mafia did try to post codes or fake them, the real masons could always step forward one by one to challenge them, and the mafia could not afford to reveal themselves to support such a claim.

[This message has been edited by Zealot (edited 03-24-2002 08:06 PM).]

[cubestudent]

mith wasn't killed, but this tactic he's describing was a precaution because he was expecting to be killed. it really means absolutely nothing while he's still alive, as he can simply confirm an ally's masonhood by posting.

[mith]

Yeah, it ended up not being used at all; I didn't die that night, since the Mafia tried to get the Cop, and the Cop eventually came out, giving us enough confirmed innocents to win.

[Antrax]