First thing, I've been thinking on the pizza a bit more.
I legitimately think there's more to the pizza than just being a stun you can choose to accept or not. Reason being that I see very little value in a stun if someone can just say, "Nah I'm good." As I think Mitsu? pointed out? That, by itself, is probably not going to be a town power at the least, since it'd be really terrible to be a "dedicated stunner" and legitimately not be able to use your stun in the most pro-town way: To impede an otherwise unaware mafia.
So naturally, the idea is then that it is likely a third party power (get people to accept stuns and achieve a win condition?), or a mafia power made to... look more benign. But there's several problems I have with this.
The third party players have not outed themselves, and they both count towards the ratio in different ways, on top of one seemingly being at least pro-mafia in terms of role mechanics given the "malicious" title and requirement to be eliminated. Whether or not these reasons are why the third parties are silent, or, as other speculation indicates, they may have win conditions dependent on finding one another, not claiming, or something similar... in the end, insofar there has been no advertisement from a third party as to their alignment.
As such, in lieu of one coming forward and saying, "Please eat my pizza so I can win," this says to me that... if they, as far as we can tell, are disincentivized from claiming their alignment, then how does a third party with a pizza win condition successfully get their win condition off? Because I mean honestly, if all you know is that eating the pizza is going to lead to a stun, why would anyone do it? Unless there's some more funky roles at play, or you're town or mafia and want the stun to pseudo-clear yourself for a night... but. I guess the neutral could have another win condition, and the pizza is just one of two or three or whatever.
I guess the short version is... fundamentally, the pizza only acting as a stun makes no sense to me from what we've seen via in-thread interaction. Which makes me wonder if the pizza does another effect beyond stunning, but then the entire context of the pizza feels so suspicious that I know I wouldn't personally eat it, nor would I advocate anyone else doing it. And also, it only seems to have showed up on N1? So it was missing N0. I think Mitsu pointed out it might be like whatever The Thing is and it... I don't know, had to be cooked during D1 and delivered N1.
@ BlaireWhen did this pizza arrive in your inbox? What would have happened if you didn't reply or make a decision? If you ate it,
all it said was that you'd be stunned? And it clearly mentioned a roofie in the pizza, or was that your embellishment? And nothing at all was listed as being a consequence of choosing not to eat it? Did it go away? Do you still have it? If you still have it, will you be forced to eat it after a certain time?
Mitsu wrote:About the vote... I don't really have an opinion on most of the votes in this phase because I feel like a lot of them are for really similar reasons (wanting to hear more from that player)
This is where I'm at. Or was at, since apparently this happened:
Interlude wrote:angelstar is Mafia.
I suppose the first thing that feels weird to me about this is both how sudden and early in the game this happened. If this isn't a mafia ruse, I am really curious about the role behind it, since a straight-forward public investigation role (presumably X-use) is... interesting.
The other thing is that whichever player responsible has said nothing, which sets off a few alarms. The obvious answer for this could be as simple as the owner of the role, if they're town and this is accurate, might not wish to out themself for role-related reasons or otherwise. Which is completely understandable and why I'm not looking at this too hard. I just... Am really suspicious of something like this showing up as early as D2.
This said, I agree that lynching angel does provide the most information regarding whatever this role might be. If it's a ruse, we do at least learn the mafia can tamper with interludes or create false ones, regardless of whether or not this was a one-off ability in the end.
I just. The timing is weird.
Vote: angelstar. I hope you can post before the phase ends for the reasons Mitsu outlined.
Kiyoko wrote:This is exactly how i feel tbh but since I realize that both neutrals count towards the ratio, we're actually not as bad off as I originally thought.
Yeah, this is something I haven't returned to since that knowledge came out. It... paints a new light on some things. The malicious third party seemingly must be removed for town to win, and as a result we can speculate their role and/or win condition probably impedes or harms town in some way, or at the least helps mafia.
At first I thought the non-malicious third party wasn't necessarily town-leaning, but probably was by virtue of the other being mafia-leaning. But now knowing that both third parties contribute to town's ratio, effectively... I kind of like this counter-balance since it means the non-malicious third party is inherently helpful, even if their win condition or mechanics might not be strictly pro-town like we hope/theorize. Also means even the malicious third party is still mildly helpful to town in the same capacity.
I kind of like this twist on neutrals insofar.
tl;dr: My gut says the pizza either has more mechanics or it may not be exactly as we think it is (i.e. probably a third party win condition). As such, I bolded a few questions for Blaire, if she sees them and can answer. I find the timing of the Interlude very unusual, but in the end it's a lead and I'm willing to follow it, I think. Third parties are interesting due to mechanics.
Edit: Huh. Reading that master post just brought something to mind. plot, are you willing to share any details on your bus driver comment? If not, it's cool. Just curious about something.