fhomess

I'm quite convinced that by the time we go through the deck we'll see that at least one mayor lied about what they got. What will also be interesting is seeing just when we get a disagreement between mayor and TCC about what was passed. There isn't much to read into until those things happen.

I think everyone's playing a bit like a vanilla townie.

Agreed. I will consider it extremely suspect if Anne doesn't get at least one town policy.

Agreed that there should be a time limit set on participation by the Mayor/TCC.

I'm actually torn because I think Ralph is the only one who has looked obviously scummy at this point. However, I will vote yes because he's at least gone along with the proposal. Vote: Yes.

Well, I'm ready to vote!

Personally, I'm generally in favor of letting things run their course with a simplified game the first time through. We really don't know yet what the implications of our current actions will be after several more game days since we've never done this before. We may find that things we think are insignificant turn out to be important, while other things that look important aren't. The game currently feels a bit slow to me, but I'm not sure that's a bad thing. We're all learning. I think the TCC voting will be more important down the line, so it's likely that this game format takes a little bit to warm up as information is a little more hidden.

Only the kill action needs to be submitted publicly for discussion according to the rules. I think submitting the investigation action to the public for scrutiny would've been a townie move, but it doesn't appear to be required. Day 1: Mayor - Edward TCC - Lindsey Cards - Mafia, Mafia, Town Town passes Day 2: Mayor - Joshua TCC - Robert Cards - Mafia, Mafia, Mafia Mafia passes Joshua investigates Anne - she is town Remaining Cards: 5 Town, 6 Mafia At the moment, I'm inclined to believe the current regime, but I think there are a few steps that need to be taken to mitigate against the possibility of a scum plot. First, neither of today's regime should be selected as TCC (or Mayor) by a future mayor. Second, Anne is installed as TCC whenever possible until/unless she enacts a mafia policy. The odds of all three cards coming up as mafia are quite a bit lower tomorrow, so hopefully we'll be in good shape.

Yes. I fully expect scum mayors to lie about the 3rd card they got at some point. By the time the deck runs out, we should have a sense for whether or not we were lied to at some point, but I'm not sure yet how easy it will be to figure out which mayor lied.

Remember that while the mayor is important, we have only limited control over who the mayor is. The mayor is selected randomly. We can reject a mayor, and we should if they have previously passed a scum policy, but we're not guaranteed to get a town mayor after that. Switching governments doesn't necessarily help scum. It only helps them if the prior government was not in their control. It can hurt them if it wasn't. Not switching governments hurts town because we lose the chance to see who other people would nominate. As the game goes on and scum policies get passed, we're going to have more reason to distrust people and more reason to be cautious about getting the government right but no more information on which to go on. We have flexibility early on that we won't later. Nonsense... a stacked council can pass whatever they like and lie about what they saw to suit their needs. Or rather, they'd be an honest scumbo. Dumb and scum as some might say. The mayor gets the power, but the TCC is the one that gives it to them.

Again with the nonsensical non-contributions. Ralph, come out and say what you think when you come here. You're wasting space and oxygen by telling us that you have to think on it. Think first, then come and tell us what you care to say. As for Rob... I'll have to think on that one. ;) Just kidding. I'm going to vote No. We have two primary pieces of information available to us in this game that is concreted. First, we have information about who the mayor picks as TCC. Second, we have information about the policies chosen/enacted by the Mayor/TCC. The game moves one step closer towards the end every time a policy is enacted. Thus, each time we choose the first mayor/TCC combination early in the game, we're advancing the game with less information about the other players than we could have had. Right now, I know who Edward nominated for TCC and who Joshua chose. I don't have any fundamental issue with Joshua's selection method, however it seems to me that we gain more information by allowing another mayor to nominate someone else, too. Then we learn something about those folks. Had we done that yesterday, even only once, we'd have information on one additional person. We'd have gotten some information on the new mayor and TCC at the expense of knowing what Lindsey would've done. Today, we're essentially faced with the same choice of information. Now... I'm not sure yet how far down that information gathering track we should go. Perhaps until we pass the first scum policy. But it seems like a worthy risk to take. I'm not entirely comfortable getting to the third regime vote since a failure to accept that third regime results in the top card being passed, and that favors scum.

Lindsey is telling the truth about the cards she got... but it doesn't mean that she didn't enact a town policy to curry favor with the town for a future day. I'm pretty sure the policy that is enacted is out of the deck for good... what I'm curious about is whether or not the two scum policies that were discarded are shuffled back in. Now, later, or never?

I'm looking forward to hearing Edward's report of what cards he was given. I don't think Lindsey is cleared for enacting a town policy. On day 1, enacting a town policy would be a good way to gain trust for a future day. Bob... do the discards get shuffled back in the deck, are they gone forever, or do they only get shuffled back in if the deck is exhausted and no one has won yet?

Ralph, do you have anything constructive to add to the conversation? Do you think the No votes are automatically suspicious?

Nowhere did I say anyone should trust me or that if I were nominated that you should vote for me. I think you should because I know I'm trustworthy, but I certainly wouldn't expect you to or even expect to have any hope of convincing you of that at this stage. If everyone voted "yes" the scum would beat us more easily. we have 3 chances to elect someone each day. It seems to me that we ought to make use of them somewhat. I don't think we will learn much from the specific yes/no votes today, but rather from the reasoning behind the votes. I'm not sure we do. We have less information with which to find the scum and therefore we need to be more aggressive in trying to understand the voting patterns.

I will vote No. I don't have any concerns about Lindsey, other than the fact that she's not me. I don't trust any of you who are eager to vote yes right away (except Lindsey, of course). Those like Robert questioning the value of nominating someone with little experience are off base, too. This isn't a Mafia game and the rules of engagement are different. There's no reason to think that Mafia experience translates here. The real question is, do you trust Lindsey to be honest about what policies she was given to enact. Those of you voting yes... do you trust her?

1 in 12, actually... what? I think Edward just needs to name someone at random. Don't think too much about it... it's in the voting that we might learn something. Those asking to be it early on Day 1 are clearly suspect. But what do I know... I've just got the most bada@2 scorpion on my shirt. I vote ________ for chair!

Christina Phillips is here!

I'm familiar with the game but haven't played it. Sign me up. I'll be interested to see if it translates to forum play. I think a mature group of players could be trusted to try it that way, but in practice you're 100% right. IMO, better to craft rules around it than to hope everyone complies. Particularly so if people are hoping to repeat the game format.

Unfortunately, I won't be available for this one... hope some others sign up, though!

FWIW, this is not normal. The games here are rarely as predictable as this game was. It really was a unique combination of things that led to a quick expected outcome this time around. Conversely, it is fairly common for Eurobricks games to have a large behind-the-scenes PM component.

I think if you want people to play more in the day threads you have to reduce the amount of information people have behind the scenes... i.e. fewer roles or fewer things worth keeping private somehow. I will say that I think mafia games are less appealing to newcomers when too much of the game is played behind the scenes. I was actually a bit disappointed that the two tracker claims in this game didn't become public with us voting for one of us.

I don't think the game was unbalanced, but it was pretty swingy. Swingy games typically happen when you have a large number of roles and if a few things combine to go one team's way, then it can become a rout. We made some poor choices as scum. It's kind of funny to look back on the scumboard and see how we basically had all the best choices on our list of options and we consistently chose something else. For example, killing MT early. Ironically, I think the scum would've been better off with less power... meaning if we hadn't had the recruit role, I bet the game would've been completely different. I don't think there was much hope for the scum by day 3. There was a lot of talk about how Dave's early claim to folks in private was a poor play, but I'm beginning to come around to the idea that an early town claim isn't necessarily a bad thing. He put a lot of pressure on me to claim, and I took a gamble that with a watcher and investigative role, there would be no town tracker. Didn't work out, obviously. I'm really surprised it took the town block so long to trust Dave. I was clearly scum and had proven that we had a tracker claim. Dave's watcher claim should've been trusted from the moment there were two tracker claims. I think the town played things very well in terms of methodically going through those claims. I'm a little surprised that Tariq claimed early and that his claim was trusted. Jailkeeper is usually implemented as a scum role. Anyway... very nice job to the town. You guys systematically confirmed each other and went about the business as needed. Well deserved victory.

Thanks for having me!

It's exactly what you did. You claimed investigator to the person you were investigating during the night. That's exactly what you did. It's not a sound approach even if you did it after the night action deadline. Let's say that you really are town, which you're not, then even if the scum had killed you and your role had not been made public, the scum would've known it. They could focus on other town PR's from that point on. Where are the more than one scum? Yourself and Jafar, you mean? I don't see how you've revealed anyone.