Well, since this has gotten so quiet and I'm bored, here are some questions for Kaidash, Lutris, Seratin, Klackerz and Ashaya, other people can answer but those are the 5 that I want to get opinions out of:

1. Which roles do you think would be the most dangerous for scum to have? Which roles would town benefit the most from, of the ones besides the holy roles?

2. If you were King, which players would you lean towards choosing, right now, for your court and why?

3. Going along with that scenario, if you were King and eventually, you discovered there was either the Duke or the Queen was scum, how would you react and why? How would you react differently in each scenario?

4. When is the right time for a Priest or Gravedigger RR?

5. What is a good point for the Martyr to sacrifice themselves?

6. Under what circumstances should any of the pagans reveal themselves?

 

Ollie, your "I have a vital town role so don't kill me" Didn't convince me at all. In fact, it made me more suspicious since you virtually ignored me. If I had 5 votes I would put them all on you -_-. You're not going to get off the hook by ignoring the vote, and seemingly a lot of people wouldn't mind you dead, (Why don't you put votes then? To pressure).

If you're taking the game seriously, then prove it.

 

Even picking a random and having it fizzle out is still an overall +town interaction.

I have a quote for this!

1. Gravedigger and Henchman are two of the stronger scum roles, for pretty obvious reasons I think.

2. Eidolonic, jwlk, sirion, sesc, because townread.

3. If duke is suspected scum, force them to pick a specific player as their replacement then kill them. Queen, just kill them.

4. Gravedigger is not guaranteed town. Priest revealing is kind of tricky since it depends on things like how town is going, amount of innocent/scum checks, etc.

5. It's good for martyr to sac for a strong town player.

6. Moonlight pagan is similar to martyr, except you don't find out who you're saving. Twilight Pagan has a few really specific uses that I don't want to talk about. Sunlight pagan is good if there are multiple people that need to be killed at the same time.

Keep in mind though that pagans and the martyr are not always town, so there are things that the witches can do with them too.

 

Sorry jwlk I actually had missed part of your post. what exactly do you want? I can't say much about my role because it'll be revealed (obviously).

Honestly I could see lynching me even if I am town as protown from your perspective since I'm sometimes a bit of a liability. I'm just assuming you're town to be nice.

 

1. I'd say scum judge, gravedigger, inquisitor. Judge because in a large game, there is sometimes a non-consensus, and that basically gives scum an extra kill. Gravedigger because of the extra information afforded to scum, which could help in both narrowing down roles and false revealing. Inquisitor to, of course, hunt down holy townies.

2. I'd have said either Eidolonic or Kai, but their aggressive posting makes me feel they might end up dead soon. Still, I said that about Kai before and he lived, so I'd probably include him. Along with that, I'd pick CheddarTrek and Jwlk, and either Sirion or Sesc.

3. Well, I'm not sure I could force the Duke to pick a replacement, so I'd just kill him and his replacement. If the Queen was scum, well... there's not much that can be deduced from even/odd, so I'd still rely on my reads on the others. And kill the Queen, ofc.

4. A priest RR should come well into the midgame, after he has either a bunch of innocents (who are under suspicion, as the priest's targets should be if he is competent) or has fingered a decent number of scum. A gravedigger should, similarly, RR only after a few days have passed and he has some important information (like debunking a false RR or simply providing information on lynches so votelist analysis can take place).

5. It's tricky, and depends greatly on the player and the target. If a strong town player is being targeted (such as a revealed bishop, cupid, priest or king, for example, or a gravedigger or judge he believes is town), that would be an appropriate time. The problem is determining when it is optimal and when it is better to wait, and frankly, only good judgement can help with that one.

6. There are several situations where skipping night is beneficial, so the Twilight Pagan should reveal then - it's usually obvious. The Sunlight Pagan could reveal if he anticipates a large number of kills, and/or if there are a number of people that obviously need killing (are more or less revealed as town). The Moonlight Pagan differs from the martyr in that it requires a reveal, so is basically a block on the scum NK that instead grants one of them an extra life - could be useful in case of a required protection on a target, where their survival is important enough to make up for the extra life.

 

I apologize beforehand for the tl;dr (chiefly to Ash who I know hates them).

It's Day 1, dude. I appreciate the effort to throw out accusations and gather data about how I'm playing, but I'm not sure on how my first post could come across as scummy. Explain?

I do agree that my posts at the moment have no real content that hasn't already been mentioned already, and aren't pressuring anybody into responding (and in hindsight I agree that playing defensively or without a strong opinion this early in the game can be a scum tell). We could chalk that up to my long hiatus from actually playing mafia, but that's no excuse for anything so I guess I don't really have a defense for myself.

Your suspicion of me does raise a few questions though, so I'll put it in boldface:

@Uncle Stojil (and StrikerLee I suppose, since you did place a lynch vote for me yesterday though I suspect accidentally):

Do you believe that there is a scummy connection between myself and Ollie (Gambit)? If so, of what nature and why?

To answer the first bit, obviously tanky scum can be very dangerous especially given poor game design (heyooo HoT2) but that's not an issue here esp. with the number of experienced players. For the most part I'd say that powerful inforoles such as the Gravedigger, Inquisitor, or the Henchman are the most negative for town should they be chosen as scum.

Assuming that they weren't already on my court, I'm leaning towards Lungs, CheddarTrek, Sesc, and Moridin, if for the simplistic reason that they seem to be playing the most overtly pro-town while still exercising caution in their posts. KaiDASH would be on the list, as would Geabe for their analytical strengths but I honestly have a hard time reading them so for now I wouldn't consider them on my Court.

Given that the Duke and Queen are on the Court from the getgo, any roles that were revealed inside the Court QT would be known to the Coven, and thus the only +town thing I could do would be to ensure that one Witch is dead by killing them off, as killing them would do nothing to hide information that was already leaked at the beginning of the game.

If the Queen is scum, then it is optimal to simply kill her off. Her information is applicable only when the King chooses his Court (if I'm not misreading the roles), meaning only on Day/Night 1 and not on subsequent cycles. Without the merit of additional information (and besides, they're going to lie anyway if they have any brains) and since unlike the Duke, no additional players will join the Court, it's a safe bet to simply kill the Queen off.

If the Duke is scum, then killing him off would only ensure that he would be replaced and another player entered into my Court. As Moridin pointed out, there would be no way of knowing whether the replacement would be scum or innocent- either way, killing the replacement would be the most prudent course of action. There would need to be a judgment call as to whether to kill the Duke at that time- killing him would most likely necessitate the death of another player, and if the Duke is scum it would be in his best interest to throw in a Town player as his replacement because it would automatically color them guilty by association. If killing an additional, potentially Town player would still be +town, then I'm all for killing my traitorous Duke.

As in all games, powerful inforoles such as the Priest or Gravedigger should only reveal their roles during midgame or if they have had a number of their checks come back. I think this question is a bit foolish as there's really only one answer to this question that is unquestionably "right", because all other answers depend on the specifics of how that particular game has played out.

Still, the Gravedigger is a potential scum role, so I suppose that also merits answering. If the Gravedigger is scum, then their reveal would also be optimal during the midgame to sell themselves as town, at endgame (or at any other time really) to 'debunk' truthful roleclaims. I suppose the opposite would be true for town!Gravedigger as well.

To save a potential powerful inforole Holy Villager like the Priest or the Bishop, or to save an otherwise confirmed Town player. Continuing with the idea of scum players as these roles, if Martyr is a scum player, it is still potentially optimal for scum to save a town role to better sell a fakeclaim or series of fakeclaims, or kep a -town player alive such as a fellow Witch or potential/confirmed Junior Witch.

Longass question. Here goes.

Obviously the Twilight Pagan is best used to prevent scum action when it is crucial for Town players to survive and when enough info is out in the open that an additional Priest check is unnecessary. The Sunlight Pagan would ideally use their ability when it is severely negative for the Coven to NOT kill a player. This will ensure that the Coven will indeed kill a player during the Night rather than opting not to act, and it would be doubly optimal if the identities of the Coven were known so as to maximize the effect of these deaths. Again, the Moonlight Pagan must use their ability when it is severely -Coven to not target a Town player. However, unless I'm reading their abilities wrong, when the Sunlight/Moonlight Pagans use their abilities, a very +Coven thing the witches can do is simply not target anybody (unless inviting a potential spy in their midst is unacceptable), so I'm actually not entirely secure in the idea of them using their abilities unless Town already has an advantage. But I could be misreading things so eh.

 

27/30 people have posted in the thread. a bunch of people have 1 post (and the people with two posts aren't doing much better).

So, Azira, Seratin and Platypus_Assassin, plus the various people with 1 or 2 posts (Mishie, Menace, Ashaya, Moridin, Castiel, Kalas, Geabe, Sirion, bob99, Strikerlee, Fenraellis, guljons, Makiri, Republic21) I ask of you the following:

Name a town read, a person you would priest check, a person you would kill, and a person you would doctor.

 

Town read: CheddarTrek (or possibly Sesc)
Priest check: Eidolonic
Kill: Ashaya, as a pre-emptive strike.

Kidding. I'd probably kill Republic at this point, though I'd be hesitant to kill anyone without more information.

Doctor? What do you mean by that?

---------- Post automerged at 03:51 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:50 PM ----------

If Doctor means protect, then I'd say KaiDASH.

 

I asked to be replaced. Sudden workload is sudden. Have a nice game.

 

Sorry to hear that, mate. Hope you can play the next one.

 

If I was a scum, I really wouldn't have typed such a post. It was just a stupid mistake of mine typing without knowing my role.

1.The most dangerous role for any side to have would be the judge,the gravedigger and the henchman though the judge is useful only during the first few days.

2. I would probably choose Sesc and sirion. I will have to wait for more posts to choose the other two players.

3.If the Queen is a scum, the only options is to kill the Queen as fast as possible. If the Duke is scum,then killing the Duke would mean that all possible Court player will be tainted by the association and he will have to be killed. I would advocate to kill both the Duke and the replaced player since the chance of getting two scum is high.

4.The Priest should role reveal when he has knowledge of at-least two or more scums. The Gravedigger should role reveal if he has knowledge of a player fake-claiming a role.

5.The Martyr should sacrifice himself to save someone who is undoubtedly town.

6.As Moridin said, The Twilight Pagan should use his/her power during the time when a free night is needed badly. The Sunlight Pagan should use the power when the town needs to kill a confirmed scum if two or more scums are alive. I am confused about the Moonlight Pagan since the scum can just not kill that night.

 

I shall answer Mishie's questions as well.


Initial apologies for what is going to be a long (and maybe lengthy) post. On the other hand, it is a detailed response, in my opinion.

It has already been said, but I reiterate; information roles are dangerous for Scum to have. This is the obvious answer: Gravedigger, Henchman, and Inquisitor.


However, in middle/late game, it is equally disastrous for Scum to possess some sort of extra life or extra kill which could level the numbers. For that reason, in the late game, Survivalist is particularly helpful to Scum (aka detrimental to Town), especially if the extra life is unnoticed. By the same reasoning through an extra kill, the Dirty Old Bastard (Warlock hunt Assassin equal) and the Hunter are dangerous midgame Scum roles.


If the scum!Queen is a good player, then it is very much beneficial for Scum as well.


The converse reasoning for beneficial Town roles holds true. That is to say, the most damaging to Town (provided they are Scum) would also be the most beneficial to Town (if they are Town). I'd like to mention the Sunlight Pagan, however, as being helpful as well. The only reason for this is that if we have a list of players which we'd like to get rid off in one shot, then this is the way to go. Note the danger, however, of too many Scum players having died. The overall effect should be to achieve a win or near-win, not to allow a chance for Scum to effect many kills (Town has limited information, remember!).


The reason, then, why I did not mention the Sunlight Pagan as dangerous Scum? This is because Sunlight Pagan as Scum would allow us to pinpoint the Scum much more easily. Consider the following scenario:

x is scum!SP
x uses his power
n dead scum kills n town players
m town players kills m town players, where m<n most likely.
Then any *strong* or *obvious* players not targeted, unless explicitly proven or close-to-100% confirmed Town, is highly likely to be scum.
(Note that the above statement is not set in stone.)

Eidolonic: Mostly vocal reasons, with repeated attempts to draw out scum slips.

KaiDASH: Same as above. On a plus side, strong analytical and planning skills.

Fenraellis: Strong analysis, as well as well-thought out reasoning.

Sesc: Strong analysis, and tends to be a good player.


KaiDASH and Fenraellis may also be detected under attack, at least according to my experience. Having a multitude of analytical players in the Court does not necessarily include the risk of having scum in the Court, but it is vital not to have an Elder and a Junior witch within the Court. At the same time, a highly analytical setup reduces the chance of Scum manipulation, and any attempt can be intepreted as a scum player.

(Of course, the above is assuming we don't have a Fenraellis/Fiat/KaiDASH scenario repeat itself.)

Assuming we don't know who, but highly suspected one or both:
I would suggest a player x for the Duke to let in (as Town as possible). Then I would kill the Duke.


Now there are several scenarios which could happen.


If x was let in then Duke is most likely town. Which implies killing the Queen would be a good move.
It is feasible that the scum!Duke lets in x to push our hand at killing the Queen. This also has the same effect.


If scum!Duke does not let x in, choosing y, then obviously y is highly likely scum and hence killing y is a good move. If y is a spy then by implication all Elder Witches know this spy. It would be safe to reveal in the Court. and we proceed to the scenario below.


The case where Duke and Queen are both scum, x would NOT be let in to avoid killing the Queen. Then y would reveal and cause the Queen's death.


The obvious difficulty in my scenario choice would be in deciding if y was a Spy or a Junior Witch, or an Elder Witch. This must be solved via analytical judgment. Don't rely on slips just because they occur.


For a confirmed case, just killing them off is fine.

Priest RR should be in mid-game when the information would decide the game, or push Town a lot to the victory goal.


Gravedigger RR, assuming town: Same as Priest RR.


Gravedigger RR, assuming scum: The reveal would appear when there is enough doubt in the Town such that the deceit can carry on into the game beyond simply immediate effects. Alternatively, the Gravedigger can reveal when the Priest is dead, but not when the Priest is already in mid-game.

Clear cut for Town Martyr, I think. When there is an important Town role and it's obvious the kill has a high chance of occuring. (The former is more important than the latter!)


For a Scum Martyr, it would be to save one of their number with a good enough ability. Either way, it would be hard to tell, so we rely on the King's Court or Spies to execute the judgment call should the Martyr be Scum. (Notable if Scum was saved.)

Now, this question is difficult to answer due to the vagueness of the timing of the reveal. My answer to this may be fundamentally wrong. In that event, I will re-answer this if I have made a mistake.


Again, assume town.


Twilight: When a large number of kills is going to occur and you do not want the Scum to achieve this. Note that foiling Scum's plans is much more important than anything else.


Moonlight: When Scum is going to kill an important town player, similar to Martyr. Note that the role is revealed, however. In the late game, any Town player is fine as long as it helps Town's survival.


Sunlight: As soon as it becomes apparant that a huge blow on confirmed scum must be effected, but the counter-effect on Town isn't enough to counterbalance the Scum deaths. Refer to Question 1.


Now, we assume Scum.


Twilight: Will do this when important information needs and is to be gleamed by Town that night. May also reveal in the case of town!Moonlight revealing and foiling Scum's night kill.


Moonlight: Any time in the game when the Coven needs to give a member an extra life. Note that depending on how good the players in the Coven are, this MAY be indistinguishable from a town!Moonlight reveal.


Sunlight: Answered in Question 1. To repeat: When scum feels the need to kill town players urgently. Most likely this is because of a losing scenario. Another feasible scenario would be if reasonable doubt is cast on a significant number of Town players.


---


Now to answer KaiDASH's question.

Town read: Eidolonic
Priest check: Sesc (if only for lack of understanding of how he plays)
Kill: Gambit OR Klackerz, whichever makes himself more scummy
Doctor: Eidolonic (due to the town read and high profile)


---


Of course, do inform me if I need to clarify anything I missed/may have been unclear about.

---------- Post automerged at 08:36 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:31 PM ----------

I experience difficulty logging in, in the sense that when I log in, it does not always register as I having been logged in.

Formatting of my post also seems to have messed up somewhat.

I would be grateful if any person could kindly help me with suggestions on the log-in problem.

 

Town read: Bill Door. Has made some pretty good points and expressed himself with a town feel for me.

Priest check: KaiDASH to get that question out of the way early, because there is always the question if he can be trusted.

Kill: Right now nobody, because I don't feel confident about anyone being a scum at this point. Will decide on this after some more reading.

Doctor: Geabe, because he is giving pretty good thoughts and putting himself on the board.

Looking at the role list I stop at the Templar. So pretty much he uses his power if he thinks atleast one of the revealed Pagans are scum, but town doesn't agree with him to lynch?
Or if he is scum Templar to get up to 3 extra kills, but this pretty much would confirm him as scum to me, if he couldn't give really good reasons for doing this.
So yeah this role to me seems both as the most useless if game goes in certain direction and potentially really dangerous if it is in scum hands.

 

Hrm, I was just getting home and starting my usual stuff when my isp disconnected my internet, and despite paying it directly afterwards, it wasn't reactivated again for several hours. I... took an extended nap >_>

That being said, I'm just checking before heading off to campus this morning, but I thought I would at least respond to KaiDASH's question of me.

Town Read:
I would probably say either Geabe, KaiDASH or Eidolonic(but not necessarily all three!). This due to their implied desire to actually get information dispersed, and at least with the latter two, get people talking and discussing things.

Conversely the above could be the actions of scum attempting to appear town, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt for the time being.

Priest Check:
KaiDASH :3
Just my general gut instinct to check you, and nobody else has really drawn my attention enough to change that.

Kill:
Ollie, perhaps, if anybody right now.
His play hasn't exactly inspired trust in him so far. I never have liked uninformed selecting of targets to kill though(I'll admit that doing so as scum has been fun in the past), as my lackluster lynch vote history would prove.

Doctor:
KaiDASH or Eidolonic, as they are some of the most vocal players, and it is generally to the advantage of scum to remove said players' influence from the game as early as they can.

 

Alrighty. The same names seem to keep popping up in this so I'll try to throw some new ones into this.

Town read: Moridin

I've played with him in several games at this point and I've found two things. He, outside of major derpitude in HoT2 due to meta, makes a solid player and that he doesn't make the most subtle scum. Outside of meta, his recent posts have been reasonably thought out and I'm getting that town vibe off of his posts.

Priest Check: Night 1 (Kai), Night 2 (Fenraellis)

Kai is likely to end up on the Court and given his ability to.. convince people that its his way or no way checking him Night 1 is about as +town as you can get. Night Two check, barring an obvious 'we need to know' check I'd say Fen. He's good at Mafia and if past games are anything to go on will only become more prolific as the days go by.

Kill: ---

I don't have a real answer for this one unfortunately. There's a couple people I'd consider throwing a lynch vote at (Gambit, jwlk, klackerz) but only one person I'd consider using a Kill ability on, but that's entirely due to meta reasons (plus he's dropped out..)

Doctor:

By definition my Doctor choices would correspond with my Priest check choices, as they tend to be the power players.

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@Sesc: You should give the rules another once over. The King's Court is broken up once they hit two members.

 

Do tell then Sesc, how we're supposed to find scum without actively using the threat of a lynch?

'Lynch scum' as a concept is all well and good, but to get to that point first scum must be found, and the best way to force scum to slip up is to pressure them using lynch votes. Sure, maybe scum will fuck up on their own (/stare/ at HoT2) making actual playing of the game unnecessary, but usually things are not so idyllic.

The Catch22 is possible, but I'd hope that people are discerning enough to not be so simple in their reasoning ('herp derp playing the game is a scumtell'). And honestly, if (oh who am I kidding the catch22 already exists in dlp meta), with such a catch22 I'd rather encourage a meta which supports aggressive, fluid play, rather than a meta which supports passive play and waiting for scum to fuck up.

For courtkills, you hugely underestimate the power of a shared qt. Also, the court kill effectively doubles the power of town, since instead of just having 1 town-aligned kill (the lynch), there are two (lynch+court kill). So it is in the best interests of scum to cripple such a powerful thing asap (and I'm saying this because I think it's so obvious).

 

Lutris to answer your question, yes it was accidental. I was trying to figure out how some of the features worked on Moscone so was experimenting by just clicking around.

 

Ireland gets a few good days of sun and I burn to a crisp. Spent the day at the beach yesterday and night in the pub so sorry for my late entrance. Caught up on the thread now though.

First thing that struck me is that Eido's posting like an asian on speed. That would have struck me as odd if not for the fact that he's displaying the exact same behaviour in the exact same game on a different forum.

Ash is being very quiet. Whether or not that's do to irl shit, it isn't like her. Almost as if she got a boring town role and isn't all that interested. Either that or she knows she'll get nuked if she posts too much.

1. Obviously the Queen. Scum queen is damn near game breaking. Sum!Judge would be bad for town with our history of no lynches. Scum Wizard would be lethal near the endgame if the coven played it right. as for which roles would benefit town? The Judge, the auto-court roles and the pagans.

2. Sesc is smart guy with a good grasp of the game and as town would be a massive benefit to court so I'd pick him. Of course his strengths would also threaten the court greatly if he were scum.

Eidolonic is active and searches posts constantly trying to pick up little details. He's coming off more as town to me in this game than the other one so i'd be hapy to go with him.

Mishie and Menace would round off the court as I'm leaning towards a town read for them.

3. Honestly? I'll answer this the same as I answered it before. I'd shit myself at the prospect of one or both being town. Then I'd try to play it cool until I could get them lynched with minimal damage.

4. Depending on how the game has played out, mid to late game. If things are going haywire, mid game but if those roles think that they're in a good position then late game is best.

5. He shouldn't. Not until he's at least 80% sure of the role of the guy he's going to be saving. Let's say Lutris is a town court member and Martyr Lungs has a strong suspicion of this. Lungs would have to bite the bullet.

6. Twilight Pagan is a bit of a tank role actually. When shit is about to hit the fan for town he can step out of the shadows and save them, possibly allowing them time to knock out a threat. If this leads to town TP's death, he won't mind. Thing is, if he stopped a coven lynch on a big town member the coven would most likely try to kill that town member again as there would be less point killing a neutered pagan.

Sunlight pagan is dangerous late game and could cause complete havoc whereas early game could help the team he's on wipe out a chunk of the other faction. A game changer for scum.

Moonlight pagan is less effective than the other two as his effect isn't as certain. He'd need to reveal after someone like the Bishop revealed in order to help the bishop tank and take out scum. Of course if he's scum then the coven could just target themselves and give a player a 1up.

Town read = Mishie.

He threw out some very good questions which can only help the town. I don't believe he's a sly enough player to be putting those questions out now so he seems less scummy. Then again, WINE.

Priest check = Eidolonic.

Solely because, while I think he's town I'd be a lot more comfortable with this game if I were sure of it.

Kill = Lutris.

Because he's rage.

Nah, in all seriousness I have no idea who I'd kill at the moment. it's just too early.

I'd doctor Eidolonic because there's a good chance he'll either be targeted by the coven or the court tonight for being the first loudmouth and I read him as town.