The Syndicate

Holy cow, what a complex game and ending! Congrats to FH, and go civvies! This was a really fun introduction to mafia, even though I was completely lost. 3 of my 4 Night Powers were used to block civvies (sorry, guys!).

thellama73 wrote:I must say, this is all terribly exciting to watch.

I agree with llama completely here. It also reminds me, as I mentioned I was lost during the game and I still am. Afterward could we maybe have a discussion board where the more experienced players explain some of what happened and what they were thinking at various stages to us newbies?

I also have no idea if the weapon choices mean anything. Would have gone with halberd for being the most obscure, but If it's worthless within 6 feet then a spear is the next closest thing.

I think it's amusing that we have been posting our reasons for picking certain weapons even though we really don't have any reasons

By the way, wanted to quickly correct a mistake a lot of people discussing this have been making: Skeletor from Snake Mountain hexes people, not a Horde member.

Yeah voting BWT as well for reaso s previously stated (he STILL never told us what area his Stridit info wad for, wtf?). It seems like a moot point now anyway though.

To MP and He-Man, as I said to LT, I'm not sure how reserving judgment u til I reread his posts equated to defending him.

And as a side note, are there any players He-Man hasn't listed as a possible baddie? It's just funny to me, his posts read like lists of names

Whoa, quick on the draw LT! I didn't even have time to finish my reread and post. I said I wasn't sure because I hadn't reread him yet. I said it's weird that so many people are hopping on the anti-BWT train because I counted 8 people attacking him, which is a third of all players. The number who can actually post is probably less with DH insanified and others possibly silenced, as well as some relatively new players who haven't been particularly active (I believe they're listed higher up on this page). The players attacking BWT also include some I would call infrequent posters to this point (ie Dom, DFaraday, Disgruntled Porcupine).

Frankly, I don't see how anyone WOULDN'T think that was weird? And why were you so quick to hop on me for stating I was unsure about him? That's far from defending him, and people are allowed to not share your every opinion. I'm actually a bit pinged by your attack on me, even if you are known for playing an aggressive game.

Linki w/ Kate: Thanks for your points on BWT. I do agree completely that his tone today has been off.

Thanks for the etiquette tip on the dream, I'm glad I didn't post it! I suppose I should've asked Epi that when he sent it to me. The dream was 1 sentence, so I'm not sure I can post it without relating the entire thing. That said, I'm happy to discuss it if people want to. The only thing that makes me hesitate is the theory I mentioned that it might be sent from the Shadow Weaver to mislead us, and I don't want to inadvertently get someone lynched based on false information.

I;m not sure how to feel about BWT after my reread either. His Day 1 behavior (writing about Boomslang and LT but then voting bf) and his defensive posts today look bad to me. Between Day 1 and today, though it seems like he's tried to be helpful. BWT has also seemed weird about He-Man the entire game, so if he is lynched and flips baddie that will be the next place to look as far as I'm concerned.

My vote might be pushed BWT because of this: people have asked multiple times what his Stridor info was, and he hasn't responded. He may have been busy defending himself, but he ate furlong and not spider in the forest, and I'm wondering if he knew something he didn't share. If he did have and conceal info it wouldn't be proof he's a baddie, but it would make me very nervous about him.

BWT, what location did you pick for your Stridor info?

So it seems pretty clear to me why Alex has decided to vote DH. Skeletor's hex lasts 2 days, remember? The one thing that confuses me is why Skeletor would be compelling Alex to vote DH 2 days in a row, especially since he's already been lynched (sort of) once. This makes me think Skeletor sees DH as really really dangerous, but I'm not sure why. Maybe DH has a particularly powerful, non-Snake Mountain role?

timmer made what I think was a really interesting point about blindfaeth. I think it bears a reread of blindfaeth's posts on my part. I'm not sure what to make of BWT yet. One the one hand, his posts have seemed most similar in tone to Boomslang's of any I've read yet, and Boomslang is the only person we've lynched who we're 100% sure is a baddie. On the other hand, the number of people hopping in to voice their surety that he is evil is a little strange.

Also, I counted up and I think it was 10 characters who started this game without BTSC, and everyone has a chance of earning it at some point. There is a lot going on here that never makes it to Public Threadsville.

And finally, the dream I mentioned was a PM from Epi, not a RL dream. Is it safe to assume that Shadow Weaver's power is to send people false info in dreams and disregard it completely, or should I post it here and let you guys decide for yourselves?

Sooo I had a dream last night...has that happened to anyone else?

And by the way, excellent work Man-E-Faces! Brave. Ripiywg llama and vompatti, and good riddance to daisy. Looks like you got lucky, AATB

Just to expand on FH's theory about the food: seems to me like a lot of baddies, if they knew what the foods would do, would choose both spider and panther. Immunity and being able to be silent for a day without raising suspicion sounds like a baddie's dream to me. However, that would be assuming they knew what would happen with the foods instead of just a vague tip.

Also, it seems like any vote at this point is a waste, but AATB and indiglo seemed very gung-ho, so why not?

Flyin' High wrote:
Also as an aside I wanted to point out that in making this table I realized that Russtifinko voted for Wind Raider which I found amusing considering he used my vote for Wind Raider as "evidence" of my potential baddieness.

Again, FH, slow your roll. I did not say that the Wind Raider was evidence of your baddieness. However, it was agreed on Day 1 that non-Stridor riders were more likely to be baddies, and I think it would be counterproductive to ignore information that's available. And yes, I did vote Wind Raider. I also voted blindfaeth, just like you. It that brings me under suspicion along with you, so be it. I don't think any of your votes make you look particularly bad, but taken as a whole, it added up to, as I said in my first post about you, a minor suspicion barely worth mentioning.

The one thing I do think is weird is your continuing belief in LT, given that no one has been able to give a better reason for their support of him besides "he seems like a civvie", either before or after the Night 1 vote. If someone could clear up for me what is so innocent about him I would be very grateful.

I hope we can stop talking about this now, as I think plenty of better lynch candidates have presented themselves. I am not running some kind of vendetta against you, and I don't see why you insist on arguing every word I post. I'm frankly very frustrated with you right now, because we're both wasting time discussing this. On to other things...

Lots of people (particularly llama) seem to be running on the assumption that timmer would not die if we lynched him again. However, when we lynched him the first time, he seemed to think that he was going to die soon. That implies to me that he either thought he would be NK'ed or expected another lynch and thought that it would kill him the second time around. This is entirely separate from a discussion of whether he is good or indie, but if people do think he is bad I think they might as well vote for him.

Flyin' High wrote:Being silenced really stunk! Especially because a few people brought up my name as suspicious and even considered voting for me without giving me any chance to defend (I'm looking at you, Russ).

I had quite a few thoughts while silenced that I took notes on and once I've had my morning coffee will post them.

Linki: Take it easy, FH! You almost got one lynch vote (but didn't). I even said I preferred to let you have your say before voting for you. No harm, no foul

Wow, this game is crazy! I no longer have any idea ad to what is going on, and I don't even trust my own thoughts and suspicions any more. I think I may have gotten myself in too deep by joining such a complex game as a first-timer. (Can I get a holla, Snow Dog? Indiglo?)

So now that timmer may actually be Evil-Lyn we should probably relynch him tomorrow, right? And if the theory is right and he dies would we get to find out Roxy's identity? And beyond that, EVERYONE seems like a baddie to me now, in contrast to 12 hours ago when I was almost convinced you were all civvies

And does anyone actually suspect DH anymore? I can't tell if people are joking about that at all. It seems pretty clear he's not Horde at least, unless Skeletor is playing the long con.

Linki w/ reywaS: I also think timmer should die again. It's just annoying because unanimously lynching him a second time is likely to give us no other leads

DharmaHelper wrote:You guys, what if DH is Moduk and the reason he's being so quiet is because he wants to fly under the radar long enough for him to grow as powerful as possible.

Pretty great quote, DH. Ahhh I have no idea what to do, but I have to go to bed! I'm wavering between DH, who I don't want to die if Snake Mountain wants him dead, and Kate, who I think should have a chance to defend herself. There's also BWT...

Going to vote DH, albeit with a good deal of reluctance. Sorry DH, I really hope you're a baddie...

Hmmm. Well FH can't defend herself, and BWT seems out of commission as well. I may end up voting for one of them anyway.

MovingPictures07 wrote: All this being said, you guys should all vote for DH instead. He's been quiet, joking, unhelpful, everything.

DharmaHelper wrote:I think it's fairly obvious what's going on with MP's suspicion of me. And as for my quietness, I'll try not to be as quiet.

STOP BEING SO QUIET.

But seriously, you have been quiet. And I still think you're worth a huge for it. Any thoughts, sir?

On that note, back to studying! I guess. My progress tests have been going really well lately (80-93% range consistently), so I finally feel I have the confidence for this thing. Wish me luck!

I know this will sound really crazy since we know MP is being manipulated. It will probably even draw renewed accusations of agreeing with MP too much, but whatever. DH has actually been on my short list for baddies too. Reading through DH's posts, he hasn't offered anything useful since Day 1. His silence strikes me as a little sinister personally. Even if he's not bad, I would feel much worse about lynching a talkative civvie than a silent one, and as I've stated, our leads today aren't great. He may even earn my vote over FH or BWT, but we'll see. I would still be nervous about lynching him since it seems Snake Mountain wants him dead, and I wouldn't want to play into their hands.

Is it just me on this one, or does anyone feel the same? As a plus, DH can defend himself, so I'd like to hear his response as well.

Good luck with your test tomorrow, MP! And a hearty welcome to The_untamed!

EBWOP: I can't actually find any post where someone was suspicious of FH. It could be that I'm the only one, and it is a mild suspicion anyway, but I thought I'd mention it.

He-Man, great to hear from you! I don't think anyone is giving timmer "civvie cred" just yet. I think he's getting "probably indie and we're not sure of his alignment" cred, coupled with "there's a reasonable chance we would be wasting our time lynching him again today anyway" cred. We can always continue to keep an eye on him.

I believe you mentioned FH as a suspect; I'm inclined to agree. Her vote pattern looks kind of bad in retrospect (ie Wind Raider, Boomslang, LT for the shield). I'm also still not crazy about what I remember as being very pro-Boomslang posts from BWT on Day 1. I'm not sure either of those ideas are enough to lynch someone on; in fact, I was hesitant even to post them. However, there doesn't seem to be much else to go on at the moment.

Snow Dog, from what I've gathered a lynch means Roxy's death was related to the vote, although a more experienced player would probably be able to answer more definitively.

MP, I know you're busy studying, but could you elaborate on the SUPER SCARY STUFF DH is doing? That's your strongest wording yet, I believe, and I'd like to know what's behind it.

He-Man, what happened to your gung-ho, baddie-lynching attitude frön the beginning of the game? You've been quieter lately, and I'm wondering if it's from a simple lack of solid suspicions or something else.

Still very undecided on my vote. I doubt Kate will be getting it yet. Though she may very well be a baddie, the Roxy connection isn't solid enough for me to base my vote on 100%.

By the way, welcome to stormcrow! Do you have any thoughts so far?

So does anyone have an idea why it was Roxy who got hit by the attempted lynch on timmer instead of, say, a random civvie?

And I know some people have said they want to hear more from Kate today, but she ate spider so that's not happening. While her Roxy connection is interesting, it's not enough for her to get my lynch vote today. I'm not saying all spider eaters should be given a free pass today, but I feel more comfortable giving people a chance to defend themselves if we can find a suspicious candidate
among the talkers.

Linki with he-man: indiglo, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the game so far. You have the freshest read of anyone, and given that there seems to be mild suspicion directed at you maybe you can suggest other candidates?

Hmmm, ok. I just noticed Dex voted in the non-player section, so that clears it up. Well the spiders were too gross for me and the horned panthers seem too awesome to eat, so I suppose that makes dinner chimp and snake-thingy.

I think your theory on the Stridor info is likely spot-on. I'm all for people sharing, but unfortunately I didn't pick Stridor, so that's far from my most selfless comment ever.

By the way, sorry for the double post, but I noticed a Dex in the poll. Someone mentioned early on that He-Man goes by Dex in other forums. Did he change his name or something, or is Dex a new player who is filling in for someone else?

I guess I'd better start by addressing the suspicion of me AATB brought up just to be safe, even though it doesn't seem to be shared by many. I can probably best defend myself using your words:

AllAlongTheBoardwalk wrote: Then again, I see no direct actions to back this up, I just find it a bit odd.

I have tended to agree with some of MP's ideas to this point, although I did say I don't share his level of suspicion of Daisy. That's partly because I feel pretty confident he's a civvie (thus my shield vote for him). That said, I should probably not take that impression for granted and should still be looking at what he says critically, so it's a good reminder for me.

On issue I haven't seen brought up is whether we try to lynch timmer again tomorrow and risk wasting another day, or ignore him for now and risk it biting us all later. I for one will also be keeping an eye on anything weird that happens to Snow Dog since he voted for timmer first. Unfortunately, the lynch yesterday and today's food poll both give us little to no information about who could be working together, etc., so I'm not sure there's much else to go on yet.

I have no idea what to make of this poll. My bet is that each food corresponds to a team and that the team whose associated food gets the most votes has something happen to them. Whether it's good or bad, though, I have absolutely no idea. It could also just be that one food makes its eaters sick and useless for a time or something.

LittleTiger wrote:

Russtifinko wrote:Poll closes in 2 hours, and no one seems to be in a position to take over timmer's top spot on my "suspicious characters" list, so I might as well vote now.

voting timmer

The poll ends in approx 5-1/2hrs at 7:10pm ET.

Thanks for the correction, LT. I still don't think anyone will act weirder than timmer, so I'm ok with it.

Poll closes in 2 hours, and no one seems to be in a position to take over timmer's top spot on my "suspicious characters" list, so I might as well vote now.

voting timmer

MovingPictures07 wrote: That being said, if Timmer does flip Snake Mountain, I'd rather try and catch a member of The Horde tomorrow if we can figure one out. But a baddie is a baddie, and my gut is telling me that I may be right with Daisy. Sorry my love.

By the way, although I am also more nervous about the Horde than Snake Mountain and am eager to try to find them, it may be wiser to try to totally eliminate Snake Mountain, no? At the moment we have more to go on with them (at least it seems that way), and if we get all 6 the night kills drop from every night to every other night, which would be pretty awesome.

That said, a baddie is a baddie, no matter which team they're on. The fewer are left the better, so maybe we'll be best to just follow our biggest leads as they come.

Very interesting post, MP. I think it seems clear that timmer needs to go; especially if he is Modulok as reywaS suspects then it's probably best to ax him early. This is for me based solely on his voting pattern because I don't know his playing style at all.

Your suspicion of SpaceDaisy could be right or wrong, I suppose. I don't know her playing style either, of course, but I was also pinged by her late throwaway. It seems illogical even if she is Snake Mountain, though...if BF is truly not Snake Mountain (which most seem to think), she could have saved Boomslang and no one would be the wiser. Perhaps she thought he was a lost cause anyway and was just trying to distance herself? If so, she failed on that by pinging you. I'm not sure what to make of her at this point though, so I'll try not to think about it until we get more to go on.

I also have no idea why LT got so many shield votes. I wasn't particularly pinged by her in any way, but I'm also not getting any particularly civvie impression. I just don't understand what has led people to trust her so much, and no one has given any examples yet. Any LT shield voters with something concrete that influenced you?

I'll probably be voting for timmer today, but will wait a while to see whether anything noteworthy happens and vote closer to the deadline. I am building a theory on some possible Horde players for Day 3, but I want to see how the vote goes and get more evidence so as not to make any wild accusations.

Wow, great info, Snow Dog and FH! I'll see what I can make of it and get back to you.

Wow! Exciting night, and a great result! 11 baddies to go, and I feel like we have a lot more to work from now than yesterday.

So I think I can explain about the 3 missed PMs. Ishar and KL05 have all done nothing related to the game so far. No posts or votes from them. Ostensibly they don't even know what's going on. Is there any way we can reach them to alert them? I don't think "Hey, the game is happening." would count as BTSC, right? Similarly, JJLehto posted at the very beginning of the game saying he'd be busy and hasn't participated since. I think it only makes sense for them to be the missed PMs.

I'm not sure what caused Boomslang to die and BF to live. It seems from reading the character descriptions that no one could have saved them from a lynch on day 1, though there are some roles with secrets. Trying to figure out who saved MP, I came up with about 7 possible candidates, so that may not be worth looking too hard at just yet.

It's interesting that Snake Mountain chose Mer-Man to execute the kill. Since his power is finding magical items to help them and his chance of success increases for each lynch votes Snake Mountain gets, it seems like they would be most willing to use him if they hadn't gotten many lynch votes on day 1 because in that case it would be likely that his normal power is useless. This is assuming that using an NK for a baddie team means a player can't use their normal power, or course. (That is the case, right?)

Other thoughts:

We still haven't seen a post from reptaronice, which would be super suspicious if he/she hadn't voted for Boomslang, who we now know was bad. Reptar could still be on the Horde, I suppose. We also haven't heard from AnnaDanielle since the prologue, but she didn't vote in the lynch poll either. She may not be paying attention or laying low.

Does anyone have the poll results from the Shield poll? I think matching those with people's lynch votes would give us a much better starting point than the lynch poll alone. As for whom to lynch, I'm not quite sure what to think yet. My theories seem to have been mostly off so far, but hopefully I'll have more to say if we do get the shield poll results.

By the way, in my previous post I didn't mean Roxy. I meant whoever it was that voted toward the end of the poll to put BF in the lead for lynch votes. Apparently I remembered wrong. I still haven't found who it actually was, so someone please post that to correct me at some point.

I trust MP at this point. I know this game is about deception, but I have trouble believing he would lie outright about his civvie-ness (and fairly forcefully, if I recall). If he is lying, he's a lot more devious than I realized and thus would probably kill me no matter what I did, so I'm gonna believe him.

blindfaeth wrote: Furthermore, I am increasingly nervous about all of the quiet players. There are even people who have voted without saying a word, which I don't think I've ever encountered before.

I hate to echo BF after voting for him, and am not prepared to say he's a civvie yet, but I am I am suspicious of Anna's votes without posts as well (btw, reptar did this too right?). I think she is worth keeping in mind for the voting tomorrow unless we get a satisfactory explanation. I agree with Snow Dog's sentiment that, even being new to Mafia, some of us have picked up the etiquette by playing. By tomorrow we'll be 5 days into the game, and at that point I think it's fair to give people who haven't posted a closer look.

However, tonight's vote seems to be more about who we should be trusting. A vote for myself seems like a throwaway at this point, and throwaway votes seem suspicious to me as a way to avoid scrutiny. I'm not sure who I do trust besides MP yet, so my vote goes to him.

By the way, the fact that no player got more than 6 lynch votes was interesting. Since we have 2 teams of 6 baddies each, that means it's pretty unlikely either baddie team voted unanimously for the same person (although not entirely impossible). If we assume one of the 2 leading vote-getters was bad and one was good, then the baddie team that person belonged to would have to be fairly uncoordinated to almost let a member get lynched when they could have avoided it, right? There were good reasons to vote for either, and I doubt voting to tip the scales one way or another would have looked too suspicious. It seems too clumsy to me, which leaves 3 possibilities:

1) BoomSlang and BF are both civvies, in which case one or both baddie teams took advantage of our misplaced suspicions to divide their votes, avoid scrutiny, and let a civvie get lynched all in one go. In this case, the no-votes could very well be baddies who are lying very low at the beginning. They were foiled somehow, which still seems to clumsy to me, although it's plausible that He-Man screwed them over.

2) Both of them are baddies on the same team, which means the baddies were in a tough spot to start with. In this scenario, they either tied the vote hoping this would happen (which was very thoughtful and lucky of them) or figured they would have to take the loss and voted for the player less valuable to themselves. This implies that civvie and baddie votes could both have been fairly concentrated, and means the few single votes and no-votes aren't any more or less suspicious, as there was one baddie team that wasn't necessarily involved at all.

3) They're baddies on different teams, which would mean both baddie teams tried to make the other team's member lose. This would mean the civvie votes were more spread out, and baddie votes would be concentrated among the top 2 or 3 vote-getters. It seems somewhat likely given that baddies can coordinate and civvies can't. This theory would mean He-Man is on BF's baddie team and was trying to save him, while Roxy was on the other baddie team. The singletons and non-voters are most likely civvies in this case (bad news, if so many civvies are failing to vote and post).

Any input on this theory, or which of the 3 is most likely? I'm completely spitballing. Being a first-timer, I have no knowledge of how baddie voting strategies tend to play out. Can speak from past experience on whether baddie teams will vote together early to save one of their own even though it likely means increased suspicion later, or the likelihood of a baddie voting war?

Sorry this got so long. Hope it generates useful theories!

Whew, I hope the others days we have more to go on! I was satisfied by MP's answer. I'll be voting more on intuition than anything concrete that pinged me. I don't necessarily trust reywa at all, but I, like Dom, have no trust in bf and disliked his use of the word "retarded", so that's where my vote goes.

Wow, these threads fill up fast! You miss a lot when you're asleep. Time to throw in my 2 cents though...

I agree with what many have said that Boomslang's response initially looked suspicious to me. However, reading through again the tone just doesn't ping me any more. It makes sense to be defensive about being lynched whether you're a civvie or baddie. I'm not saying Boomslang is definitely one of the good ones, but I think I'd need to see more suspicious activity before giving him my lynch vote.

I was actually pinged a bit by MP, and for different reasons than others have been. He was the first to make a claim to be a civvie on this thread. I don't have time to find the quote, unfortunately (have to go to work). Now, my logic on this could be totally off, so someone please correct me if that's the case, but I think making the first civvie claim of the game only makes sense if he's a member of the first baddie group to get a night kill. If he weren't then he'd be taking a big risk by saying that, because the baddies are trying to kill civvies and they just might believe him. llama also made a civvie claim later, but it seems less dangerous to be the second to do so, as the baddies only have one kill.

MP, feel absolutely free to dispute my claim. As I said, my logic may be off because I'm new, but I figured I'd mention it because it pinged me. I'm still not at all sure where I'll be voting, and it definitely seems like a shame to me to lynch someone on Day 1 at all, especially as no one has even been killed and all we have to go off so far is people's posts.

I agree that non-Stridor voters do look slightly more suspicious at this point, but I'll also be keeping an eye on Stridor riders.

Picking someone to lynch based solely on vehicle choice seems a bit presumptuous. Even if the theory that one player from each baddie team (and the indies) chose the Stridor, that leaves us with 10 baddies and an indie among 21 non-Stridor voters. That's still almost 50% odds on hanging a civvie, so I personally hope to get something more to go on by the voting deadline.

It's looking more and more like the Stridor was the best vehicle choice, especially since many seem inclined to choose among those who took other transportation methods.

I agree with He-Man completely, the setup and prologue for this game have been excellent.

Wind Raider for me.

Getting to the village first strikes me as kind of a constant-sum game; that is, the more people who try to do it, (by picking Attak Trak or Wind Raider), the less chance of getting the magical item, which decreases the expected value per player for that strategy. The information the Strider gives should also decrease in value somewhat for every additional person who chooses it because it becomes less exclusive. So everyone should be trying to pick the less popular option, I think.