Steampunk Mafia: Conclusion

[CorneliusMurdock]

We can't all blow ourselves up for you every game, Hinck.

[Shadows]

Oh, I forgot to mention, this game was loosely based on Assassin in the Palace. The point of Assassin in the Palace is their is a King and one assassin. The rest of the players are all guards and they all know who the King is. Cool concept. Very cool, but I made it more Mafia-ey.

That does sound interesting.

Rick has been killed Night One in three games now. And now that he successfully won as a Serial Killer in Baritones 3, people really focus on him on Night One. Did you read IMHOTEP? I think you'd really love it. You were sorely missed in that game. Best EB Mafia game EVER!

That's just because we all secretly hate him.

I did not read IMHOTEP, I didn't have time to read or play when it was running, but apparently I'll have to look back at it now. During this game, someone referred me to a change in the way that night results were presented and said it came from IMHOTEP, so I had no idea what they were talking about, which I'm sure didn't help in figuring things out.

We can't all blow ourselves up for you every game, Hinck.

Speak for yourself.

[Hinckley]

We can't all blow ourselves up for you every game, Hinck.

Oh, why not??

I did not read IMHOTEP, I didn't have time to read or play when it was running, but apparently I'll have to look back at it now. During this game, someone referred me to a change in the way that night results were presented and said it came from IMHOTEP, so I had no idea what they were talking about, which I'm sure didn't help in figuring things out.

I think you would like it. However, I have no idea what this new way Night Actions are presented. Who said that? And nobody has answered what reference I supposedly made to Jedi Temple (which I'm not reading )

[Shadows]

I think you would like it. However, I have no idea what this new way Night Actions are presented. Who said that? And nobody has answered what reference I supposedly made to Jedi Temple (which I'm not reading )

Something about blocks not being so obviously blocks. It confused me, too.

Now the real question... wtf was up with that brown frog. That was seriously not a clue, right?

[Zepher]

He's already said that brown frogs were hints to the conversion. I think it may refer to The Forest? I'm really pulling for The Forest 2. Let's make it even more complicated!!!

I don't recall if I've gotten to say this yet, but playing with 11 other pros (and 1 other pro host) was really awesome. Thanks for a great game everyone!

[Shadows]

He's already said that brown frogs were hints to the conversion.

I know what he said, I'm just trying hard not to believe it.

If it really was the Forest, I was far too busy watching all of my plans go up in smoke, literally, with every reincarnation.

[Hinckley]

Now the real question... wtf was up with that brown frog. That was seriously not a clue, right?

Didn't you read The Forest after you were voted out and resurrected and voted out again?

He's already said that brown frogs were hints to the conversion. I think it may refer to The Forest? I'm really pulling for The Forest 2. Let's make it even more complicated!!!

I don't recall if I've gotten to say this yet, but playing with 11 other pros (and 1 other pro host) was really awesome. Thanks for a great game everyone!

I thought it would be harder for the Scum considering you all know each other so well. It was cool watching you all play together, though. I'd like to mix noobs into the next one I host. More complicated? Is that even possible??

[Shadows]

Didn't you read The Forest after you were voted out and resurrected and voted out again?

Of course I did, I always read games after I'm killed.

[Rick]

Then again, I guess Rick had all of us pegged on Day 1... please tell us how!

Hinck's giving me a bit too much credit there. I didn't post it as a list of Royal Family members. It was a list of three people who didn't attract a lot of attention on day 1 (which is consistent with them being Royal Family though) and we felt could safely kill without having our target protected or watched. I was almost convinced of Draggy being the Queen after day 2 though. But, as Pandora said, I'm glad we played the game as a regular mafia game instead of trying to just seek out the Royal Family. We wouldn't have risked killing Draggy if we thought there was a chance he got protection, because we needed every single night kill to be successful and even then we'd only win after two mislynches by the town. Along with Pandora's claim, I really think the almost perfect night action planning is what won the game for us.

Rick figures out that the persistent roles are not the Royal Family as they coincide with the jobs of the alter egos. That’s where the Scum have the balance of not having their role cop. Will they figure out the Jester is the bomb/PGO, though? Or that the King is the Inventor? Probably not. And this really only gets Shadows and MetroiD off their lists as they are the only two with persistent Night Actions. What a fun game! I think it does have a nice balance.

Giving our action set (killer, blocker, and one-shot inventor), I figured there should be a way for us to identify who's who and I quickly made the link between roles and alter-egos. Indeed, we didn't get much further than the investigator and the protector, because... well, the rest doesn't make all that much sense. I spent most of the game thinking the guards were the ones with limited-shot roles (like Pandora's original role), which is one of the things (along with the information from Zepher that a lot of the actions were limited-shot) Pandora based her claim on. I think claiming three-shot instead of persistent blocker made her claim a lot more credible from the town's perspective.

The problem was the way he claimed his role made sense and actually made me suspect that he was a member of the royal family, all of whom seemed to get roles with limited uses (one-shot), like backups of the real roles. Someone either knew how the royal roles worked or got very lucky there.

I see you and Draggy were blabbing your roles to each other again on day 1. However, given that you were a persistent investigator yourself, I don't understand you dismissed the possibility of a persistent protector and believed Cornelius' one-shot protector instead. More importantly, I still think you had more reason to send his name to three people (so they could lynch him when MetroiD came up town) than Pandora's.

[Shadows]

I figured there should be a way for us to identify who's who and I quickly made the link between roles and alter-egos. Indeed, we didn't get much further than the investigator and the protector, because... well, the rest doesn't make all that much sense.

Sense? You expect sense? How's this for sense...

Night Action: You are a Toaster Salesman, which means you are the investigator.

I see you and Draggy were blabbing your roles to each other again on day 1.

He didn't blab until day 2 when I was already looking very town. I didn't blab until he died.

However, given that you were a persistent investigator yourself, I don't understand you dismissed the possibility of a persistent protector and believed Cornelius' one-shot protector instead. More importantly, I still think you had more reason to send his name to three people (so they could lynch him when MetroiD came up town) than Pandora's.

I only had 2 days and during that time, I was the only person I could confirm to have more than a single shot action. MetroiD didn't reveal that until far too late to be useful and he'd told me enough contradictory things that it held very little weight until after he was dead, which was too late. Even then it didn't contradict CM, plus I couldn't legitimately inform anyone, since I was dead as well.

I already knew that Draggy was a one-shot watcher and didn't know if another one existed, so the possibility of a protector and a one-shot protector wasn't out of the question. I had absolutely no reason to send his name out as a suspect, plus they wouldn't have lynched him based on that suspicion any more than they lynched Pandora, who was seriously a lot more suspicious looking. Enough people knew and the only one to act was the only one who shouldn't have. It was just destined to go the way it did.

[Fugazi]

Bob doesn't seem to know how to play for the team. (I don't remember why I wrote this)

Why is Bob the one who everyone turned off the joking and turned on? Past games? Cliques? Strategies? First voted off the island on All-Star Survivor? What’s up?

I for one think that Bob played very well on day 1. His attitude both in thread and in private pretty much convinced me that he wasn't scum. In my opinion day 1 was successful for town despite -- or rather thanks to -- the non-lynch. We did gain information from the voting patterns, we just didn't use that information fully later in the game. For instance, Cornelius' quickly jumping on the CMP vote tripped an alarm but unfortunately he played so carefully afterwards that he didn't give us anything else to grab on.

Did you see my note, though, about the Town turning on you? Everyone's joking, everyone's joking, Pie jokes, all jokes stop!! Now let's accuse Pie. Lynch him! Lynch him!

I liked your joke and I thought it was somewhat insulting to think that you would be that obvious as Scum as to ponder out loud if you could find the real women to kill the queen and the bodyguard. Well, it got activity going either way. Yes, your lynch would have been beneficial and you could've used your kill whenever you wanted so you could observe and decide who was Scummy. Glad you had fun and learned either way.

My vote on CMP was really only that of course, a way to get things going. It could have been anybody, and the exact motive didn't matter much. It was certainly not meant to insult CMP in any way, and he defended himself very well under the circumstances. Of course there was no way for us to know that lynching CMP would prove useful -- even had he claimed that he was vengeful, we wouldn't have wanted him lynched right away assuming that he would have to use his action on the night he was killed.

[Dragonator]

I died. It was very sad.

[Shadows]

I died. It was very sad.

No doubt you plan to say more, since you're still posting, but I had to highlight this part, obviously the most important part since you said it first.

[Dragonator]

Player Feedback: Poo. You barely got to play. You joined the game late. I had a noob in your spot which was originally Cecilie's. For the first time ever, I ignored the cups and made a conscious decision to put a certain player in a certain role. You were originally Eregor and Cecilie was the queen. In a game this size, I didn't want to put you and Shadows opposite each other, especially where he was the (non potato-kicking) investigator. However, it turns out I shouldn't have put Pandora and Rick on opposite sides either, but more on that in a bit. Strange that Rick had you pegged from the beginning. I think middle-ground is usually your game, but for some reason he said he thought the Royal Family were "Zepher, JimButcher and Dragonator" after Day One. I thought you played well. Perhaps this role should be a two-shot in the future? I based it off of basic games from mafiawiki for balance. What did you think? I'm interested to hear your opinion on balance.

Oh right, hello mister host!

I liked this game a lot. The mechanics were fresh, and the the balance was very decent I feel, except for the conversion. I think that was a bit of a kick in the pants for the town, as it put the ratio from 9:3 down to 8:4, which is a pretty difficult position for town to fight from. Doesn't take much for a scum team to win on those odds, when you take into account that it isn't just a numbers game, they can persuade and manipulate too. Other than that though, I liked the variety in the roles and the overall workings of the game, it came together really nicely and was very fun to follow after I died, even if I was banging my head against a wall by the end.

I don't like one-shot actions much, they annoy me. I always end up either not using it and dying, or using it too soon. Looking at the spread of power roles and the limited player cohort, I can understand why you wanted one-shot actions, but I think that from a playing perspective, one decent action is often more beneficial to the town than 3 one-shot actions. Plenty of room for interpretation there though, one-shot actions do have their place and there was nothing wrong with you using them. I should note I haven't looked at many basic games on Mafiawiki, since our style here differs a fair bit, did you find much of use there for game balance?

Lastly I should probably make a few notes on the playing aspect. I had a great deal of fun, although I am extremely disappointed I never got to inspect the chandelier in the steampunk ballroom. This oversight will need to be corrected for Steampunk Mafia 2. Day one was fun, lots of silly jokes and then some interesting voting. Rick stood out for me as acting a bit odd, as did MetroiD, but he acted odd for the whole game (sorry man! ). I decided not to use my action because I was either going to die night one or everything would be a jumbled mess. Day 2 was great as we got to lynch the first assassin, and I was very happy with the reasoning there. Then I died and everything turned to crap.

So after my death I followed along, and was rather astonished that Pandora kept getting away with everything she was saying in the thread, especially after MetroiD died. Some of the reasoning on the last day was appalling! With the hindsight that there were actually three assassins left, not two, so that did make things a lot more confusing for the town. Zepher, your little plan on the last day was still a complete face-palm-worthy moment though, not going to lie.

Did you see my note, though, about the Town turning on you? Everyone's joking, everyone's joking, Pie jokes, all jokes stop!! Now let's accuse Pie. Lynch him! Lynch him!

I turned on him because he said cock. Seriously, Mafia is all about innuendo and lame sausage jokes, cock is just so... crude! It's small points of etiquette like that which can get you killed you know! Which in this case may have been a good thing considering your role.

[MetroiD]

My erratic behaviour change on Day One attracted so much odd attention and reflecting I see why. I went from odd slapstick actions to a sudden let's get down to business stance rather quickly. I don't know why MetroiD insisted I was scum even over the course of several days.

Obviously, you seem to know why I insisted there was something fishy about your behaviour on Day 1. But when my attempt to lynch you didn't work on Day 1, I tried something else entirely. Go through the day threads once again and you'll notice there wasn't any other mention of lynching you after my attempt on Day 1 was unsuccessful. Yes, I was unhappy, because a lynch on Day 1 could have helped us somewhat, but that was that - and whenever I spoke about Bess from that point onward, it was just as a reference. True, I dangled the idea of trying to revisit the Day l lynch options once again in private to see how people would react, but I never tried to convince anyone you were scum in public OR in private, so once again I don't see why you're reacting as though my motives were somehow personal!? I really can't understand why you and other Townies would always be so keen to jump to the conclusion that I was trying to lynch you again. I was trying to say what I was actually saying - and giving rational explanations to my behaviour, which obviously none of you were interested in anyway.

For what it's worth - it seems that I was still right, in a weird way -- since if we had actually lynched you on Day One, it would have helped us in more than one way... Not only would we have been in a position to link people's votes/reactions to the results of the lynch, but we'd also have known that Cecilie was a (dead) Scumster. So, Cecilie and Rick's willingness to so easily accept my obviously lousy accusations against Bob could have turned into a very good scumtell for us, and pretty Bess could have killed us an Assassin as early as Day One. Combined with Shadows' investigation, we'd have taken care of two Assassins on the first two days. Instead, Day 1 was wasted for Town, with absolutely no useful alliances formed up.

Then, on Day 2, I decided to mix it up and check out what people's responses would be to a claim that was actually true. I thought it was downright obvious that I was the protector from the moment I said that in public, but I was never going to come out and say that yes, I was the protector, because well - that's not the way I like to play, and obviously not what our host expected from us either. What I did forget though was the fact that the Scum would be much more organized considering their small numbers and would never allow themselves to be so obvious as I was - hence would not follow up on the opportunity I gave them to defend Rick.

Day 3 started weirdly for me since I wasn't making any progress in private, and people weren't keen on speaking out in the Day threads either. Once Shadows decided I was scum, I tried to level with him and in the end did give him _all_ the info I was privy to. All I wanted was to be able to form a 3-way discussion with the other "confirmed" Townie. Obviously, he was lying about that, so my uneasy feeling about trusting Shadows to begin with was not so ill-advised. I didn't really believe he'd actually gotten a result on Rick on Night 1, so I only had myself to blame for the fact that I believed he had actually confirmed a Townie on Night 2. Either way, it's hard to work with someone when they're always trying to think of new ways to bamboozle you and then end up claiming that it's the "other people" I've been in contact with who'd been feeding me lies - which couldn't have been the case anyway, considering the lack of trust I had towards people I was in contact with up to that moment.

Towards the end of Day 3, Shadows still didn't think the fact I was obviously the Town Protector was enough to try and save me -- and, on the other hand, the way Cecilie never placed a vote against me made me think she couldn't be scum. So I ended up telling her all my info / observations as well. And I also placed a vote in a way that I thought could help Town on the next day.

Panda - I wasn't suspicious of you because you weren't ready and willing to form a Town hub and trust me from the off. What got me thinking was the fact that you tried to accuse me in private (your reaction to the "should we reconsider the Day 1 lynching options" talk I mentioned above), and it was a very scummy accusation, which didn't match the way you'd have reacted if you were Town. So from that moment onwards, I was working under the assumption that you were Scum. That was my only reasonable lead before I was lynched and was also something I shared with Shadows; that's also why I voted against you in public, even though it would never have changed the outcome of my lynching. I wanted Town to be wary of you and go after you afterwards. Instead, they blindly followed an accusation and lynched me for being obvious, without actually making any use of my death afterwards.

As to the whole PM timestamp deal - I did clear that up with Shadows immediately after he notified me that he was suspicious due to that. It was a freaking P.S., dammit...

[Cecilie]

the way Cecilie never placed a vote against me made me think she couldn't be scum. So I ended up telling her all my info / observations as well.

I felt so bad when you chose me to trust with your info (and yet so happy I could feel useful to my scum team ), and still I had to maintain my facade... I'm glad it worked to not vote for you though, because it was my intention to keep up my appearance as someone who believed you and who you could trust to the bitter end . Sorry

[MetroiD]

Sorry

Sorry? You should be chuffed; you had me totally fooled and you played an absolutely great game! You deserve a lot of credit for keeping your cool throughout - it seems you play a thoroughly awesome Scumgame and I'll be sure to add you to my list of "don't-Rick-this-up-man!" players.

Going through all the posts in this thread, I can't help thinking it's really appropriate for Meahon to have pink hair in the end... Sorta like the village idiot... Once again, I'm sorry for causing so much confusion in the Day threads; but Shadows - I don't think I contradicted myself at any point in time in public or in private? I was very much willing to bite the bullet for Town, but I was hoping my aggressive play would end up helping Town in some way, which I must admit it really didn't, in the end.

In hindsight, the one thing I totally regret is that I never actually tried to work with Foog, even though based on his Day One actions, I was pretty sure he was Town. That could have made a great difference, even though he probably wouldn't have trusted me too much anyway. At least that way, once I'd died, there would have been one actual Townie left behind to use the info I had - and adding that to what was already going through his mind could have been pretty beneficial.

[Cecilie]

Sorry? You should be chuffed; you had me totally fooled and you played an absolutely great game! You deserve a lot of credit for keeping your cool throughout - it seems you play a thoroughly awesome Scumgame and I'll be sure to add you to my list of "don't-Rick-this-up-man!" players.

Thanks I just can't help feel bad about lying to and manipulating people, even though it feels great to be able to do so successfully. It's a really mixed bag of feelings

[Fugazi]

In hindsight, the one thing I totally regret is that I never actually tried to work with Foog, even though based on his Day One actions, I was pretty sure he was Town. That could have made a great difference, even though he probably wouldn't have trusted me too much anyway. At least that way, once I'd died, there would have been one actual Townie left behind to use the info I had - and adding that to what was already going through his mind could have been pretty beneficial.

I agree we could all have shared more. I think this is the first time I was killed at night as a townie, and one lesson I learned for the future is to pass on information and suspicions because there might not be a next day. But the good thing is, there will always be a next game to try and do better!

[Hinckley]

I love that we're going into such in depth analysis here. Post game dissection, fun! OK, I have a few things to respond to, but I'm at work, on IE7 (or whatever) which doesn't allow multiquote. So, I'll post more later about the great talk we're having here.

I was merely pointing out that such a comment wasn't exactly indicative of being scum. However, with lack of better evidence and since I'm not going to vote for myself;

Vote: Charles Pleasance (CallMePieOrDie)

I think this is why I wrote Bob doesn't know how to play for the Town. The weird way he "defended" himself in IMHOTEP by trying to make it look like Cornelius had made up the PM and here where he votes for the person who he was previously defending, or at least getting more discussion going on. I don't think he's Scum, but I'll vote for him. It's just an odd move and can really lead the Town to doubt your motives and maybe even just assume you're Scum in the end. But, you obviously did the right thing afterwards by approaching people in private and were able to do what you needed to, to avoid the lynch. So, perhaps I'm being too harsh in my post-game feedback, but I would encourage you to step it up, regardless. I bet you could be a pretty good strategist at this point. We know you have the drive as we saw at the end of Yakuza.

I agree we could all have shared more. I think this is the first time I was killed at night as a townie, and one lesson I learned for the future is to pass on information and suspicions because there might not be a next day. But the good thing is, there will always be a next game to try and do better!

I forgot to mention that I was impressed with how you helped lead the Town with Shadows in the first couple of days. Placing the first vote on Day One and getting the lynch going based on his accusations was a good way to form a strong Town alliance and move forward working together. You put yourself out in front when it came to following through with accusations and that helped support Shadows and encouraged the Town to have more than just one person to trust and potentially have conversations with behind the scenes. Too bad it didn't exactly happen that way after Shadows was killed.

I think that's one thing the Town players in this game might not be used to. Three real-time days is a ton of time and when I'm working on a game, I get a lot done in that time. I dig and dig behind the scenes, but that's just my style. I think that may have been what was lacking for the Town after Shadows died was an appropriately competitive psycho with the time on their hands to get things going. It is really hard with this concept, I know. I was out of my mind trying to figure out exactly how to do it with IMHOTEP, needing to protect certain people and not reveal anything at all to the Scum (or inadvertently everything as it turned out ) but we found a way to make it work and it was by being really active. And that didn't make for lack of day time activity either. No play-writers in this game. But, I did like that the day threads are very readable for other people, not littered with too much nonsense, and the Town was almost there. I don't think it was time. In my experience, you just need to push a little harder. Perhaps I should do the x-shots differently next time. Find a way to limit them, but not make the Town feel they need to hoard them. Odd nights vs. even nights or something?