Twitch Plays Mafia [HELIX WIN]

I should probably say something of substance this phase, huh?

I'm still must inclined to vote Sammiya or Mr. Alice, as they didn't really contribute much before, and even less today, heh. Still, I think it's either one or the other, and I kinda got the feeling that Sammie was trying to turn eyes on Blaire ("She's scummy AND has people voting on her, maybe we should lunch her next phase. ") with her vote last day phase. A vote that wouldn't amount to anything because of all the Start9 votes.

Lucas is always acting all innocently flustered, but something about how he is this time does seem off, I have to agree.

Drandahl, accidental(?) self vote...lawl.

As for T3t, I'm torn. Hr certainly send helpful and Town-like, but it's T3t. I just assume he's lying at all times. And speaking of T3t...

T3tsuya wrote:

drandahl wrote:
Oh and Tiki. I keep forgetting Tiki, but I don't know where to place him

Story of my life.

Aww, don't be coy. You know exactly where to place me in your life.



Thanks to Alice of Oz for this masterpiece.

Pagetop edit: I still don't have any good TPP related stuff to post up here, but, hey, it's the holidays, so how about another review of a Christmas treasure!

OK BLAIRE SO I FUCKED UP, I TOLD U I WAS TERRIBLE AT RIDDLES


Also smh @ everyone saying there's something off about me this time. Is it because I haven't confused myself and tried to lynch Sammie for brutally killing my Kiyoko, something she wasn't really responsible for??? Don't worry guys there is still time for that jfc, I'll fuck up eventually, it's in my nature.

Honestly though, I can't defend myself here, and I've repeated and rephrased myself several times already. The way I see it, all I can do now is reaffirm that I am town, and that I really don't want to be lynched.

high seraph wrote:Honestly though, I can't defend myself here, and I've repeated and rephrased myself several times already. The way I see it, all I can do now is reaffirm that I am town, and that I really don't want to be lynched.

EXACTLY WHAT A DOME WOULD SAY!

But, eh, still not leaning toward a vote for you. As like last time, I want to wait later to vote, both to hear more before my vote is locked in, and to be sure my vote counts toward something.

What i fear most is a vote clusterfuck at the end, but given that we can't change votes, I'd rather not have my vote locked in something that could generate a split that the Dome would manipulate.

Alright w/e, I'm just gonna Vote: Sammiya. It was either her or Lucas, so I'm just gonna go with her, because I feel like it'd look like I bandwagon'd on the Lucas vote if I did that.

(You are so, SO close, buddy. ; w ; You can do this!)

Ok so, idk what's going to happen in this phase, but I'm not gonna sit on my vote any longer because I'm not sure if I'll be able to follow the thread as closely from now on, and because I've been holding off only to spend the better part of the phase defending myself from votes without any good reasoning behind them. At this rate, I have indulged in several wild theories that haven't gotten me anywhere. So, I'm putting out my vote: Mr. Alice. Burgerville deserves a better administration. Burgerville needs someone capable of making great riddles. That someone is Blaire.

No, but seriously. I don't want to vote Ninfia because... There's something that makes me think that it wouldn't make sense for her to be mafia yet, even though her tunneling makes me uncomfortable (but that may be because I'm her target lmao). So I'm going to go with the next person on my list. Blaire has answered to my questions, but her answers... they simply didn't really stick with me. She said she was favorable to keeping an action log, but hasn't contributed to maintaining it. She jumped on T3ts vote against Cure without providing much reasoning, and later started a "vote4blaire" campaign[/b] that felt very scummy to me, as it seemed like trying to employ some sort "hiding in plain sight" kind of strategy -- "I'm town, but if you want to vote for me go ahead! But I'm town! Honest!" Furthermore, Blaire hasn't been contributing too much to discussion. If she wasn't around to make an occasional joke or brush Luxaria's hair, I would consider her to be almost as inactive as Sammie at this point.

Ah, I see that Blaire ninja'd me with a Sammie vote. Before writing this post, I considered voting against Sammie too, as her silence and her strange voting patterns have been bothering me for a while. However, she has already said that she won't be around until after rollover, and I think we can wait to deal with her once she is able to defend herself. But tbh, I was willing to hold off on voting Sammie today anyway, since she was apparently taking a test, and I can relate to her situation, with an important test coming up in January ;__;

Okay, so only Lux and i haven't voted.
Hmm...if either she or I vote for Lucas, it's a lock on him.

Uh, Lux, where art thou? Would like that big, informative post you promised earlier, heh.

Thank you for your vote, Lucas. I will remember it when I am in office.

Also I have totally been contributing to the activity log! >:O I said that I've been bussing people, I just don't super wanna say who because they're gonna be mad at me! Probably maybe!

ANOTHER ALSO!!! I didn't jump on the T3t vote on Raie, or at least, that wasn't my reasoning for voting for her? I voted for her because I was pretty much feeling pressured to do something (because I didn't have much to actually say) so I did that. I felt like she was being kinda weird, so I went with it.

Dude these points have pretty much all been covered before (maybe a little too subtly though?) BUT THAT'S OK!!! I will forgive you even though if I live to next voting period, I'm pretty set on voting you anyway sorry. ; o ;

I don't agree that giving out or not giving out night actions in this game is a strong mafia tell tbh. It's really actually pretty easy to fake unless you really don't feel comfortable with the game mechanic.

high seraph wrote:She jumped on T3ts vote against Cure without providing much reasoning, and later started a "vote4blaire" campaign[/b] that felt very scummy to me, as it seemed like trying to employ some sort "hiding in plain sight" kind of strategy -- "I'm town, but if you want to vote for me go ahead! But I'm town! Honest!"

Yeah, I found this odd as well. I've been trying to decide if that was town behavior or a de-scumming tactic. Considering she hasn't really contributed otherwise, I'm leaning maf personally. Also I didn't consider this until just recently, but it's far less risky if she had one or two maf hiding without having yet voted, though that's not necessarily what happened.

That said, if Blaire flips town, Lucas (or maybe Tiki) is definitely next on my list.

Edit: snaked by Mayoral Candidate Blaire herself.

Btw if Lucas flips town, I think I'll be digging into Blaire and possibly tiki more. No offense... i just want more of a conversation, and I still don't have the best read on you tiki. Games w/o information roles need the extra push in my opinion.

If Lucas flips Town, aren't we really hecked?

Also I understand your digging but I'll tell you straight up, that will not create productive conversation, because it never ever really has?? Imo??? Maybe you get some things out of it, that I hope is helpful. I hope everyone finds something helpful!!!

If it's for that, then I welcome the grilling. It is the most popular form of burger cooking, after all!

I am so exhausted. And drained. I'm just going to read through the posts and give brief thoughts as I go, now that I finally have a chance to actually sit down.

But for starters, I hinted at indecision. So I did the thing I always do that I said I wouldn't do this game, like I say for every game--but then I did it, and I regret my life's decisions later, but anyway. So I re-read, wrote down, and analyzed the entire thread before yesterday. But then I saw some posts by drandahl and T3t right before rollover, and drandahl's messages in particular seemed really off to me. I was originally going to protect or bus off of myself, but after that I decided I should do a different target... only. I wasn't confident in a protect anymore, and I did still want to focus on lowering the chances of mafia getting a bus.

So I tried to quickly pick two targets with 10 minutes left. I thought of alcasync dying N0, which has a lot of implications. I couldn't decide whether mafia would then try to pick off someone else known to be talkative, or switch things up to be confusing and pick a less talkative player. I kept analyzing claims, votes, and similar things. Main observations from that time as best I can recall:

Sammiya and Rasei's claims and votes fit their playstyles as town.
Ninfia seemed rather neutral, middle-ground, and one of the least likely to die.
Mr. Alice was hard to read.
T3tsuya seemed pro-active and leading.
Tiki, idfk, it's Tiki. Equal parts suspicious and not with an abrupt, muted vote.
high seraph had me a little suspicious.
drandahl flipped between suspicious and not suspicious back and forth.

I then just picked T3tsuya like I did N0, put a bus on him and just picked Mr. Alice because I was curious what alignment I was voting against yesterday, and this seemed the best way to figure it out in case T3t got hit.

But I sent the PM, refreshed the page, and rollover was already up. Thus, I think I was too late.

Now... reading the thread.

@ Blaire: ty for the brushing, but pls be gentle.

@ Tiki: So you think one of Sammiya or Mr. Alice are mafia? Why so?

drandahl wrote:Also Cure was pretty damned at that point... if I were mafia, I'd probably try to keep her alive a little longer. Which is why I'm slightly sideglancing everyone who took advantage of the Blaire vote, even if I keep them in the Not Sure bucket for now.

This... reads really weird to me. Cure wasn't completely damned at that point. There was one more vote left after you, which means if you voted Mr. Alice it would have allowed a tie between Mr. Alice and Cure, if you truly didn't wish to vote for Cure and still have your vote matter. I sort of get what you're saying, though. However, I'm not sure what mafia gains from trying to keep Cure alive when they could just let her die without making a scene of it? She's talkative and speculative. If the only alternatives appear to be Mr. Alice or Start9, one reveals the player alignment of someone that can be tough to read, and the other prolongs the game. I don't get this statement.

And "taking advantage of the Mr. Alice vote" is a bit disingenuous. Only myself and Sammiya voted for Mr. Alice, unless you count Start9 as taking advantage, which implicates yourself and Ninfia (discounting Rasei since her vote was fourth of the phase, and she flipped town anyway). I chose Mr. Alice because I wasn't confident on Cure being mafia and had read her as town at multiple points (previously mentioned), on top of wanting an alternative to the bandwagon--and I explained my reasoning a few times now. Voting Mr. Alice allowed my vote to matter on someone that I had less of a read on than Cure. Sammiya then voted Mr. Alice with reasoning that Cure felt like town to her. She had pretty much no votes left, and if she was mafia there was arguably no harm just voting Cure at the end since her vote had no meaning after you did a Start9. I don't think anyone took an advantage, unless you think Sammiya, the only one whose vote other than yours and Ninfia would have no effect, specifically voted away from Cure to avoid the "Only a mafia would throw a vote on a sure town bandwagon lynch!"

I think T3tsuya harps on this in a later post, but the entire last paragraph of this post just reads really funny to me.

T3tsuya wrote:Luxaria's Mr. Alice vote effectively was the same as your start9 vote as they both effectively meant nothing at the time of voting

Eh, I was the seventh vote. I made it 4 - 2 - 1 (Cure - Mr. Alice - Start9). I could have done Start9, but I had no guarantee the remaining 3 votes would all go Start9. And I did want a lynch, so I went for Mr. Alice. If only as much as 2 of the remaining 3 votes went for Mr. Alice, there would be a tie. With 3, Mr. Alice is lynched instead. I did as much with my vote as I could, whereas the vote you're comparing mine to did nothing.

drandahl wrote:At the time I wrote that, I didn't view my timing as problematic at all since it couldn't change the outcome of the phase.

As pointed out above, it could have.

Regarding the self-vote, I am really uncomfortable with this. Setting aside flashbacks of Tiki's Worst Escapades, your following post less than a minute later asked if that counted. So you noticed it immediately and could have just removed the bold lettering to be safe if you truly did not want to vote for yourself. Either it was a genuine slip-up, or you're trying to remove focus from your vote and possibly make voting on you look less legitimate this phase. Which would be a weird move, but... on top of your other comments, and the impression I got D1 and N1, it's really strange.

high seraph wrote:Not as in "high seraph, you should protect T3tsuya" but more like, "high seraph, you're in charge of the bus along with Luxaria and Tiki". Honestly, idk. Tbh I haven't put much thought into this "strategy", it just ocurred to me now lmao.

Luxaria wrote:I also toyed with the idea of dividing the players up into groups of who would do what action (so we could prevent, say, all of town tunneling in on one action and leaving the others to mafia), but even distribution could mean mafia ends up with sole possession of a role power. Eh. Also takes away the fun of the format, but it was an interesting idea to consider all the same.

Source

--

I think those are the broad strokes I wanted to cover. I'm looking at the votes coming in and it's just me and Tiki with votes left.

Before this phase began, I had drandahl and high seraph as suspicious, as noted. drandahl still feels really off, but some of his explanations haven't been too terrible. high seraph, I can't quite pinpoint. I've actually read through all of his posts in summary format and viewed his profile to read them without outside influence, just a wall of high seraph. I can't determine if my view of him is because I specifically find him scummy, or if it's due to context or conversation of and by others that makes him sound scummy.

What's interesting to me is that if I seal a lynch on high seraph and he turns out to be town, I'm not sure how I'd parse T3tsuya and Ninfia as the other voters for him (if Tiki does not follow suit). That leaves combinations of Town/Mafia/Mafia, Town/Town/Mafia, or Town/Town/Town. I feel like them both being mafia is very remote and unlikely. There's another aspect I'll get to in a moment.

I don't really think we're at a crossroads where mafia needs to bus one of their own. Killing alca and then Rasei does bring with it the suggestion that the trend of a high-talk, high-spec player being the NK was broken because the next targets under this logic would either be mafia or lead to a scenario where one or multiple go conspicuously unkilled as mafia. Alternatively, it could be done to throw off speculation. Rasei hadn't yet posted quite enough for anyone to write her off as town, though she did stay true to her usual town play--but not enough for guarantees.

Now I see T3tsuya and Ninfia voting for high seraph, Mr. Alice voting for Sammiya, high seraph voting for Mr. Alice, and drandahl... voting for himself (one of these is not like the others?). I still do not feel comfortable with drandahl's vote.

Mr. Alice's vote on high seraph is to avoid a bandwagon, by her admission. Is that because she doesn't want to look like she's bandwagoning, or she doesn't want to irreversibly make Lucas the easy lynch target and condemn him? She says she was fine with him or Sammiya being the target. If she voted Lucas, then that almost guarantees one of her objectives.

high seraph votes for Mr. Alice. I actually do agree with some of his comments about Blaire's play and statements during the game. One of the reasons I tried for a bus onto her is because she's equal parts scum and... Blaire to me, which is to say this is kind of how she tends to play regardless of alignment, so I am having trouble pinning her down either which way.

The votes on high seraph are problematic for me because I follow T3tsuya and Ninfia in that I have felt some scum levels from Lucas. But as noted, when I read his posts by themselves with no other context, I can't really find anything that leaps out at me. So I'm not sure if my perception of him is gut instinct, or if it's contextual. I do agree with Ninfia in that Lucas' admonishment of Start9 is a bit suspect, but he has tried to explain himself and I sympathize heavily with being ninja'd and having to hastily adjust statements. It happened to me due to the post of his that's being referenced. Alternatively, Ninfia's own vote that phase was done at the point in which Start9 was no longer viable, which makes her criticism of his criticism of Start9 a little interesting. But, I can also see her point of view in which she was overwhelmed by the quick pace of developments/posts in the thread and just didn't feel comfortable voting for anyone in particular. If it was a simple oversight, that's completely understandable.

A moment ago I said I'd get to something shortly. I saw a comment--I believe by T3t?--that it's probably likely for someone in T3tsuya, drandahl, high seraph, and Luxaria to be mafia. drandahl suggested there might be a quiet mafia. So I'm checking something.

Quietest players in terms of post volume, content, and transparency would be Mr. Alice, Tiki the Troll, and Sammiya. I want to analyze this pairing to get this out of the way.

D1
Tiki claimed stunning T3tsuya; voted Cure (in an abrupt fashion, 4th and last vote on Cure).
Mr. Alice claimed bus; voted Cure (stated that it didn't mean to seem retaliatory, first vote on Cure)
Sammiya claimed protect on alcasync; voted Mr. Alice (last vote of the phase, vote wouldn't have changed the outcome at all)

D2
Tiki claimed bussing Luxaria and Sammiya (said it was Sammie or Blaire; believes one of them is mafia); hasn't voted yet.
Sammiya didn't claim and voted Start9 due to being busy, as far as I noticed.
Mr. Alice claimed bussing (I believe?); voted Sammiya.

On day one, Mr. Alice's vote on Cure really got the wagon moving from being stalled, and Tiki effectively hammered it in, you could say. On day two, Mr. Alice voted for Sammiya instead of voting for high seraph or drandahl, the only other targets with votes on them. Previously, Tiki stated he believes one of Sammiya or Mr. Alice are mafia. Both now have votes, so both would be eligible to tie up with high seraph. Mr. Alice chose not to vote for high seraph because she didn't want to seem like she was doing a bandwagon. If she was mafia with the other two, voting Sammiya distances all of them from each other (since Tiki and possibly Seraph, I think, both mentioned Sammie as candidate for vote--and in this case, Tiki also stands to gain from voting for Sammie). However, if Tiki follows through on his previous statement, then that means they have to now lynch a mafia. If he does not, then he needs to have a good reason for why high seraph (or whichever player I vote for) is a better candidate than one of the two he indicated early in the phase.

It's not impossible that they have staged this together such that they wanted to clear themselves of association through those comments. Also, killing alcasync and then Rasei accomplishes the goal of letting more talkative players eat each other. Say this combination is actually mafia. Now T3tsuya and Ninfia want high seraph gone, drandahl apparently wants himself gone, and they can just coast on killing off Ninfia or drandahl and let T3tsuya and Luxaria eat each other alive due to Luxaria's blatant paranoia regarding T3tsuya, yes she is quite healthy and moved on, no the voices in her head don't still mutter rollover to this day.

But if this is their plan, I'm a little confused by why Tiki is waiting on my thoughts/vote, and why Mr. Alice went for Sammiya first. Sammiya's vote at the start of phase is also just impossible to read since she played the RL card.

So is this pairing possible? There's... it's not impossible. It could be legitimate. However, I think the current situation makes more sense when you follow the idea that one of T3tsuya, Lxaria, drandahl, and high seraph is mafia, at the very least. Even if two of Tiki, Sammiya, and Blaire are mafia, the third mafia hiding out and letting the other talkative players eat each other makes sense. In the middle of this, Ninfia is also pretty talkative and speculative (and for the record, even the "quieter" players have offered speculation and thoughts, to their credit), so that obfuscates things more, especially with her more pointed approach to Lucaseraph than T3tsuya's general gut feeling (I think this was your reasoning, but don't quote me because I haven't double-checked you and oh god this post is already so long).

So here I am at this impasse. I can seal the lynch on Lucaseraph with a vote. I can double-down on drandahl, who has felt scummy to me, and create a tie. I can vote on Mr. Alice, who has felt a little elusive and unreadable to me, and still create a tie. I can vote on Sammiya, who has honestly seemed consistent with her usual playstyle, but she's been too quiet/absent (for RL reasons!) for me to form a sound judgement--oh, and this also creates a tie.

Difficult. So very difficult.

I am going to post this while I deliberate over this decision. If anyone has anything to offer before I vote, feel free to chime in.

Closing thoughts: I am having a very difficult time envisioning a scenario in which one or two mafia are currently trying to lynch-bus another mafia and kill them--or frame someone. If they encourage a mislynch this phase and get a NK off, that's just one more mislynch to win. Unless both remaining mafia in this scenario are both people that would be very weird to not see dead at the start of D3, in which case this makes lynch-bussing slightly more plausible.

No one has seemed to make a dramatic slip-up beyond drandahl, and no one followed up a vote on him as an easy target to clear themselves via bussing. I also cannot see mafia trying to frame a player by saying, "You voted for an easy mafia target (drandahl, in this case) as a way to make yourself innocent, you are clearly mafia." And then the remaining two mafia push a mislynch D3 on that player... but then that player would be town, and assuming N2 NK and successful mislynch, that means assuming another mislynch and no backfires during the night, at earliest mafia can win by the end of D4 (correct me if I am wrong: D2 5-2; N2 4-2; D3 3-2 (mislynch); N3 2-2; D4 1-2 (mislynch). As opposed to just getting a mislynch now and needing another next day phase, eliminating excess time when town can talk... unless some mafia really would look suspicious being alive after N2. Stil seems unlikely.

Thinking.

HOW IS IT AN HOUR LEFT. OH GOD.

((Not-an-edit, edit: "You said brief thoughts? What the hell is "long" to you?"))
((Actual-edit, edit: I SWEAR I DIDN'T MEAN FOR IT TO BE THIS LONG IT JUST KIND OF HAPPENED. THINKING.))

Good god, Lux. Reading now, but I guess you've at least delivered what you promised.

Oh, time is ticking.
Even with Lux's post, I dunno. D=
Uh, well, Lux, I'd be fine with agreeing to vote the same person as you, as I do have trust in you. Just dunno where to go, and Lucas isn't my #1 suspect.

Regarding my self-vote.

That really was an honest mistake. I took some time writing that post, and instead of reviewing via preview first, just posted and went to read in-thread. I noticed immediately I had made a bolded mistake and was really frustratedly worried that someone would then ignore the work I put in place and just focus on my blunder. I also (in the moment) was worried that if anyone saw me change it, I might come off as super-disingenuous. Not to mention if I actually did that, I'd be making more than a cosmetic edit which feels really wrong to me.

I made sure to follow up and explain who I would like to have voted. Please, I felt pretty comfortable with my explanation.... there's no good reason town or mafia to try an intentional tactic like that.