Mindscrew 7, The [REDACTED] Edition

To clarify a bit: Mafia don't do alignment changes, and Mafia are my only enemy, so it doesn't harm my interests to warn others not to try changing my alignment.

I'll throw a FoS: Sid_The_Kid based mostly on the recent flip-flopping and the way he's just thrown out my name as Town and saying "Mafia harder to lynch" after Darth claimed being harder to lynch today (but not tomorrow? grab bag of abilities that change over time?).

Still a bit wary of how Votes and FoS work today, so I guess it makes sense to Vote: Sid_The_Kid while I'm at it, just in case. I'll have to do a deeper reread, but for now it's important I vote.

Alex Steiner wrote:Side note: How did Supreme Overlord get that Mafia faction alignment stuff from a Town role PM? Mine doesn't have any information not directly relevant to my wincon and abilities, so it seems odd to inform you of a different faction's limitations.

It wasn't in the raw text of my role PM; I had to actively go looking for it.

Alex Steiner wrote:(and attempting to use an ability blind while still amnesiac)

Great minds!

Alex Steiner wrote:Assuming that's true for all players, it means N1 stuff was less likely passively or actively stopped by Town (since amnesiacs didn't have passives N1). I'm more inclined to think global roleblock N1 or even universal amnesia (with secret faction communication the only exception maybe).

This seems likely to me.

Alex Steiner wrote:I'll throw a FoS: Sid_The_Kid based mostly on the recent flip-flopping and the way he's just thrown out my name as Town and saying "Mafia harder to lynch" after Darth claimed being harder to lynch today (but not tomorrow? grab bag of abilities that change over time?).

Still a bit wary of how Votes and FoS work today, so I guess it makes sense to Vote: Sid_The_Kid while I'm at it, just in case. I'll have to do a deeper reread, but for now it's important I vote.

”Just throwing your name out? apologies for not bringing my full APA references  

Alex Steiner wrote:… more importantly I win when no Mafia remain. It's not "non-Town", or any inclusive list, it's exactly Mafia. I haven't won, so some of you are Mafia, and you probably already know who you are.

This right here, information that cannot have been a guess, so specific, corroborated by multiple people. Note: I’m explicitly ignoring the other part of this post as Town Amnesiac could potentially been a good guess but it too was corroborated.

And to add context to my “mafia harder to lynch”

Sid_The_Kid wrote:Assuming that a silent mafia is most likely, my guess is that we have 1 or 2 members in our midst.

Supreme Overlord wrote:

Stranger wrote:Is it possible the mafia don’t know who else is mafia like us with other townies?

Ah yes, I forgot to mention, it is possible multiple Mafia don't know each other, or there is only a single Mafia, which weakens my assumptions from their ideal form. Personally, with Mafia unable to recruit, and a Town win con that only requires Mafia to die, I think it's most likely there's more than one (and if so, I think it's likely they know each other and can communicate) - but it's not certain.

I agree, having to only kill 1 player seems a tad easy for town, especially since their main tool to kill is lynching,assuming no TK roles. But with the vote target hidden, it’s entirely possible that there are ways that mafia have been made harder to lynch.
And for mafia to have too many members,especially if they’ve been known to each other from the start, seems too easy for them, so I’d rather work on the assumption that we have 2 in our midst.

I was looking at the dynamic of the 7 from a playability/balance point of view. For a single person, or even 2 for that matter to be the only thing stopping one faction from winning needs a bit of balancing out. From the Amnesiac role that I had, and that others received, it was obvious that this game was going to be an ability centric one.

I stand by my conclusions even if they have been buried in my own wall of text

Darth Skywalkerbacca wrote:

Sid_The_Kid wrote:
To say something of my role/character I’m a human that’s been known by many different aliases throughout the years, thanks to Mr Bob Kane.

Interesting, I am also of the hero inclination, and a hero/villain theme would be more reasonable than an, eats a lot theme. I have no issue with saying that my character is Emma from Gen V (spinoff of The Boys) knowing this in no way helps to identify either of my abilities so I don't mind sharing. 

I am assuming this from the mention of Bob Kane anyways, but does anybody else also share such a thematic role? 

(Also I have been watching Gen V as is comes out, so I enjoyed my character when I got her but I do recommend, it is worth a watch)

I don't have any reason to believe that Darth is lying here. Emma is indeed a character who is bulimic, so that validates Darth's earlier claim completely in my eyes. As far as if that gives any indication on their alignment.. no idea.
I won't spoil anything about the show, but this also, in my eyes, explains exactly how Darth specifically lost his memory. There's a tie in there, for sure.

Alex Steiner wrote:Apologies for the lack of posting, and I recognise the irony here. C'est la vie, unfortunately.

SolVI wrote:

Alex Steiner wrote:Firstly: Most important information I can glean from my now-remembered role is that the concept of alignment changing is in the rules. No idea how or when it might be done, but it seems probable to me that the Mafia or third party win conditions might grow in number by changing player alignment.

This is particularly worrying, and also rather interesting information.
Alex, is there anything you can reveal about how your role PM revealed this information? I'm genuinely rather surprised you were able to ascertain this much from your role PM.

Simple: I'm explicitly immune to it as a Passive Ability. Could be a misleading dummy ability, but that doesn't feel likely, and it doesn't make sense to play as if it doesn't just work.

Well, I'm satisfied with that answer. I share your doubt that it's just a dummy ability too.

I'll gladly say my character isn't at all tied to the superhero/sidekick thing. My character is fat, and generally pretty damn lazy. My character is also in the line of police work. One of my abilities allows me to reveal an alignment on someone, but due to my "incompetency", I lose the result, and it goes to somebody else.

Generally, I'm very weary of revealing my alignments or character info for people, as in many games like this, I've had a history of being targeted, both when I was really innocent and wasn't, so it's just second nature to me. Hopefully this at least clears up some doubts poeple had.

Gotta also point out the "Alex has been prodded" part. Anyone have any guesses on what caused that? Was it asking Alex how is ability worked?
U'll be honest that no ideas scream out to me.
My current mindset is that we should still lynch someone. I'm mostly suspicious of Sid and Stranger, so I'm not going to pussyfoot any longer.

Vote: Sid
FoS: Stranger

Sid honestly does appear kinda suspicious. The inconsistent information about his character implies he may be lying for some reason, which indicates a possible non-town role.
Vote: Sid

Supreme Overlord wrote:Sid, why tease 'Bob Kane', only to go ahead and reveal 'Robin' one post later?

Specifically, this sold me on it. Sid's hiding something, 100%.

Circling back to the character discussion... I suppose it wouldn't reveal too much to a possible punisher role if I reveal that i'd consider my character good-aligned.

Honestly they probably would fit into a 'hero' archetype tbh. So that corroborates the current theorized theme.

SolVI wrote:Generally, I'm very weary of revealing my alignments or character info for people, as in many games like this, I've had a history of being targeted, both when I was really innocent and wasn't, so it's just second nature to me. Hopefully this at least clears up some doubts poeple had.

Gotta also point out the "Alex has been prodded" part. Anyone have any guesses on what caused that? Was it asking Alex how is ability worked?
U'll be honest that no ideas scream out to me.
My current mindset is that we should still lynch someone. I'm mostly suspicious of Sid and Stranger, so I'm not going to pussyfoot any longer.

Vote: Sid
FoS: Stranger

Ah this is quite the position I’m in. I think I should come clean here and now about it since I have no idea when N2 will begin.

One of my roles clauses states I have pretty shit PR and any investigations done on me will falsely indicate I’m mafia aligned.

At least this means SolVI can be cleared, why give him that ability if he’s already mafia? Seems pretty redundant unless a clever ruse.

FoS: Sid

Ok, now that I’ve had some time to ponder this, let’s go back through it shall we? Happy for anybody to pose questions to me.

TLDR: D2 explanation:

As I stand at what I guess is N-1 does anyone have any questions? Or are we just going to hammer?

The only day ability I have was “Introducing… ” each day choose 1 of my aliases, this limits what my second night ability is that I have available to me. I passively have a 1-shot vest (thanks to Wayne Industries) and a “Take up the Mantel” ability. As I said, a little screwy but I guess it ties to the long history of the character more than the character themselves.

To explain why I take one extra vote to lynch today. It is because I take one extra vote to lynch if I do not use my ability and being amnesiac this retroactively was put into place. Though it did specify that this will always be in place on Day 2 so it is possible some of us tried to target abilities even if we didn't know what they were and it may still have worked. 

As for if Overlord has given enough information so far, I'm not exactly pleased with it, but I will get back to you later. I was going to shift my vote over to Sid to see what info they could give but I'm not going to do that now considering the vote count and the info that has come out recently. 

Unvote
Vote: Stranger


If you are going to claim a flipped investigation result you're going to have to give us something more to go on as well. 

Also I would like to point out that Alex has been playing long enough to know how this works, guessing that town wins after all mafia is dead is no indication of innocence in my mind. Also I'm regards to the prod I assume it was just due to inactivity and the mod missed his previous posts

For what it's worth, I don't think there needs to be a specific reason for any particular character to have amnesia.  As far as I know, I was just amnesiac Day 1; my real role doesn't have any connection to it.

SolVI wrote:Gotta also point out the "Alex has been prodded" part. Anyone have any guesses on what caused that?

'Prod' is the term for when you get an official reminder if you haven't posted in a certain amount of time (seems like maybe two RL days?).  Sometimes there are consequences for being prodded too many times.

Dark Vessel wrote:Sid honestly does appear kinda suspicious. The inconsistent information about his character implies he may be lying for some reason, which indicates a possible non-town role.

What exactly do you think is inconsistent about Sid's information? I thought it was a bit strange to go from vaguely referencing Bob Kane, the original creator of Batman, and then so quickly to get specific about claiming Robin - but it's a consistent sequence.  Unless you're referring to something else?

Stranger wrote:One of my roles clauses states I have pretty shit PR and any investigations done on me will falsely indicate I’m mafia aligned.

This is kind of awkward, because I'm inclined to believe it as a plausible ability (I had it last game) - but it is awfully convenient for Mafia.

Stranger wrote:At least this means SolVI can be cleared, why give him that ability if he’s already mafia? Seems pretty redundant unless a clever ruse.

I reckon you're not giving SolVI enough credit if you don't think it could be a clever ruse.  In my opinion, while it's a plausible ability, it is convenient that SolVI won't have to actually produce the investigation results, because 'somebody else' gets them.

SolVI, can you elaborate on who gets the results? Just random?


I'm not on board with the Sid lynch at this stage.  I'd also prefer that someone calls for a more complete claim before they hammer, if they have the ability to do so.


Darth, this is something that's been confusing me - did you actually have different flavour text to the rest of us?

Sid wrote “Role PM” wrote:You are...

You are... Huh, you could've sworn that you knew who you were mere moments ago... Maybe you just need a good nights sleep.

This is what I had too.


Alex, Sid, Dark Vessel, and maybe Darth are my Town reads at the moment, which leaves SolVI and Stranger.  I could see a one-way link between Stranger and SolVI via Stranger trying to say SolVI is cleared.

There's not much from SolVI to Stranger; only these two comments:

SolVI wrote:

Stranger wrote:Okay well, I think for me the best strategy is probably lying low for now being fresh to this game and it seems to be the status quo anyhow. The less dirt we give the mafia the better honestly.

Rich coming from me, but I'd also rather we didn't vote based on activity (or a lack thereof). I do what I can to reply when I can. I like to contribute when I've got a solid hour or two to really sit, read everybody's posts and also make mine. That's just the nature of how I play this game.

SolVI wrote:My current mindset is that we should still lynch someone. I'm mostly suspicious of Sid and Stranger, so I'm not going to pussyfoot any longer.

Vote: Sid
FoS: Stranger

So I'm not sure exactly what SolVI finds suspicious about Stranger - but it could be 'I want to distance myself from my Mafia buddy, without doing any actual damage'.

Vote: Stranger - the most realistic competing bandwagon currently.  Stranger is at L-1 now; please do not hammer without asking for a full claim.
FoS: SolVI

Um ... also, SolVI has not once mentioned Sid Day 2 (expect for a nested quote), until finding him 'mostly suspicious'.  SolVI, do you have any reasoning for bringing Sid to L-1, other than jumping on the easiest bandwagon?


Also, Alex, Dark Vessel; I realised Stranger is the one not currently voting, which is less than ideal for being the swing vote between a Sid and a Stranger wagon.  Would one of you consider unvoting? Presumably Stranger will vote Sid, and one of you can be the swing vote.

Supreme Overlord wrote:
Darth, this is something that's been confusing me - did you actually have different flavour text to the rest of us?

 Same day one flavour text as everybody else it seems but upon waking i seem to have gotten a little extra flavour text in relation to Cate (character in my universe that makes people forget things) I don't really count it as anything other than that though.

Unvote

*What the fuck did Cate do to you this time, and where is Sam?*

 This specifically

Unvote
Yeah, I had no idea who made Batman. Whoops. Kane being the original creator IS consistent.

I remain suspicious that Sol is some kind of jester, given the unreasonable blunder they made earlier..

I mean, I’d rather clear my name if anyone has any questions please quote this. Also refraining my vote anyone could be mafia at this point, I honestly have no clue. Supreme seems to be the most townie in my current head cannon.

There could be a way for me to clear my name but it would take me not getting voted tonight and a fellow townie to test my ability on and confirm my innocence. Assuming they are an actual townie, if they are Mafia they’d probably want to lie and try to get me thrown back on the lynch wagon so it has to be a townie.

All my abilities are pretty OP and I assume the troublesome egg wanted me to abuse them.

Supreme Overlord wrote:Um ... also, SolVI has not once mentioned Sid Day 2 (expect for a nested quote), until finding him 'mostly suspicious'.  SolVI, do you have any reasoning for bringing Sid to L-1, other than jumping on the easiest bandwagon?

I genuinely do have some suspicions about Sid, mostly just their circular logic, but a lot of it is the bandwagon. I'm of the opinion we should lynch someone today, as we weren't able to last time, and jumping on a bandwagon helps to achieve that goal. I would be hypocritical to pretend like it wasn't that

If you’re going to bandwagon vote anyone which is a what it will be without some kind of sound evidence then you’d better choose me. If Sid is not Mafia and is lynched I will have to investigate and there will be repercussions..

@Stranger could you elaborate any more on the nature of your investigation? What kind of information do you get? Just alignment, or a full role reveal maybe?

Darth Skywalkerbacca wrote: Same day one flavour text as everybody else it seems but upon waking i seem to have gotten a little extra flavour text in relation to Cate (character in my universe that makes people forget things) I don't really count it as anything other than that though.

I got some extra flavour, though mine was (I interpreted as) more relevant to my passive than recovering from my amnesia.

Darth, why unvote Stranger? What do you think of the Sid wagon?


Dark Vessel, similar; what's your opinion on the Stranger wagon? Also, would your suspicions about a Sol-jester mean you'd be outright against a SolVI lynch, or more that you'd just not be actively in favour?

Stranger wrote:There could be a way for me to clear my name but it would take me not getting voted tonight and a fellow townie to test my ability on and confirm my innocence. Assuming they are an actual townie, if they are Mafia they’d probably want to lie and try to get me thrown back on the lynch wagon so it has to be a townie.

All my abilities are pretty OP and I assume the troublesome egg wanted me to abuse them.

I'm going to say this because I feel myself being tempted to question you about your abilities: I don't think you need to claim anything more about your role/abilities unless you've got three votes and someone else is threatening the fourth.  If you've got information that would be helpful if made public, by all means share it; but you shouldn't feel compelled to just because.


SolVI, what's your opinion on Stranger/the Stranger wagon? You said you were 'mostly suspicious' of Stranger (along with Sid) - what stood out?

Stranger wrote:If Sid is not Mafia and is lynched I will have to investigate and there will be repercussions..

What do you mean by this? Do you think it's worthwhile taking the risk of possibly lynching a Town member, if it gives up more of a clue about the people on and off the wagon?


Ninja'd by Darth - but yeah, I reckon that's the sort of question you don't need to answer until you're at L-1 and Darth's threatening to hammer.  Up to you though I suppose.

Indeed, I believe I was prodded for inactivity and nothing more.

Note that votes are working, even without naming a specific player. Sid and Sid_The_Kid both worked. FoS and Votes aren't swapped in the count.

Supreme Overlord wrote:I got some extra flavour, though mine was (I interpreted as) more relevant to my passive than recovering from my amnesia.

My role PM also had some flavour; it was a pretty direct nod to my character's source material, though nothing to do with amnesia or forgetting.

A brief foray to Emma Meyer's wiki page makes Darth Skywalkerbacca's claimed ability (Social Media Influencer when not busy being a superhero) quite plausible, though not necessarily Town-aligned. Some anti-Town role not acting at night in order to save themselves from the lynch is vaguely balanced (if the ability is weak, or it's endgame). So on the whole you've been pretty straightforward with your claims, though it's still mildly suspicious that you doubt the Town wincon.

Darth Skywalkerbacca wrote:Also I would like to point out that Alex has been playing long enough to know how this works, guessing that town wins after all mafia is dead is no indication of innocence in my mind. Also I'm regards to the prod I assume it was just due to inactivity and the mod missed his previous posts

I disagree. Much was said last game about the need for Town to eliminate all non-Town roles, with several neutrals in play (and no formal mafia). Even in a typical game, Town needs roles like Serial Killers to be dead (as "threats to the Town"). My win condition doesn't call for that, it specifically names Mafia, which has since been corroborated. To claim that the Town wincon was specifically Mafia when it could have easily been worded those other ways would be a risk if I didn't have the Town wincon in front of me. Anyone with a different Town wincon would counterclaim, and then be corroborated by others, and I'd be lynched.

All that work done trawling TVTropes and I've got little to show for it. These claims of a grab-bag of traits (quadruped, cop, etc) make it too tempting to try guessing, as if that'd actually prove anything.

After reviewing Sid's posts in context, I'm reasonably inclined to believe him. I might disagree with the conclusions, but I can see the Town justification for the posted thoughts and claims and deductions. Unvote. UnFoS.

Sid_The_Kid wrote:The only day ability I have was “Introducing… ” each day choose 1 of my aliases, this limits what my second night ability is that I have available to me. I passively have a 1-shot vest (thanks to Wayne Industries) and a “Take up the Mantel” ability. As I said, a little screwy but I guess it ties to the long history of the character more than the character themselves.

I wonder whose mantle you'd be taking up? A Deputy role (that can investigate after the Detective dies) has precedent (along with equivalents for other Town roles). Robin is pretty versatile (as seen in the claimed ability) so it could be anyone that dies, I suppose.

We've got a strange cross section of partial claims and amnesia flavour discussion. Before I continue, I'll add that my amnesia isn't just a plot contrivance or one-off thing, it's part of my character throughout.

Quotes about Character amnesia etc:

Supreme Overlord stands out as the player to specifically deny both amnesia in their character (with the caveat of not being 100% familiar in the former case, and SolVI claims lost memories as forgetfulness). I wasn't familiar with my source, but google showed the amnesia link (and I checked the relevant TVTropes page and there I was in the list).

SolVI's concern about alignment revealing is still strange in a game where "Town" is established as the alignment to be, especially for a cop who will apparently lose his alignment investigations to someone else. While SolVI is claiming alignment investigation, Stranger has bad PR passive to mess with investigation and wants a Townie to test his ability on (so they can confirm he's innocent somehow?).

Dark Vessel has made no comment on the amnesia, but feel free to clarify how forgetful your hungry quadruped is.

It amusing to me that Sid voted for Stranger early in the day, and since then they've claimed "taking up the mantle" and "my abilities are pretty OP" respectively. If it was a later vote I'd claim Sid was self-interested.

I'm curious about the limitations of the one-shot vest. Presumably won't save you from the noose, only gunshot wounds? A reasonable inclusion for a character who only gets interesting after roleswitching to a dead player's abilities, I suppose. That said, you also claimed to have a choice of night abilities (selected during the preceding day). What can Robin's aliases do that isn't wildly swingy and worth replacing with something else?

In any case, I'm definitely leaning towards Darth Skywalkerbacca as a third-party alignment, with the harder-to-lynch thing to help as insurance. I don't get alignment-switching vibes from the flavour of Emma, though. Cate, maybe, but not Emma. As discussed, I don't need to kill non-Mafia to win, and can't have my alignment changed, so I guess I don't care. Being harder to lynch is thematically anti-Town, but it could be a balance thing to get your abilities to D3 and prevent an unfortunate early elimination of a key role.

On the whole, Dark Vessel's post history strikes me as a little opportunistic (even with the recent Sid backdown). Stranger is interesting enough with these claims that I'd rather see what he does N2 (I'll volunteer as the Town target of your mystery ability if you want to lay out exactly how I'll be able to verify anything as part of answering the questions from Darth and Overlord).

As such, I am suspicious of SolVI, Dark Vessel, and slightly of Supreme Overlord (as a matter of principle and the strange lack of amnesia). If forced to choose, I'd lynch Stranger over Sid, but I'd sooner see his claims play out overnight.

However, I'd prefer we all Vote: SolVI. FoS: SolVI