Mafia CLIV: Bigger, Medium, Smaller Mafia (Town Win)

[justy]

I don't have much time now and I'm going to answer Happy's questions later. Now I just want to +1 Harb's post above. Couldn't agree more.

[Harb]

Why does sjg vote jordan and continue the momentum when he does?

Self preservation. sjg feels forced into voting in the Not Large world by justy's logic. He thinks that justy's actions make him too town to press. He thinks that by being "reasonable" and accepting justy's position and ALSO pointing out how townie it makes justy, it gives people reason to trust him. If he shifts the lynch to Jordan and Jordan is scum, sjg gets all sorts of town cred for the hammering switch. If he DOESN'T shift, then he's going to look stubborn and like he's defending an outcome he wants instead of actually considering process. Zip is already poking at him for the positions he's holding, so he's rightfully worried that gets him lynched.

It's worth remembering here that if it's an sjg/jordan team sjg is going to NEED huge town credit to have any sort of chance this game.

Why does sjg help create a sjg vs. jordan vote when he does especially when his stance on larges were so cemented?

See above. He's worried that it's really obvious how wrong he is on the Large lynch stance and it'll get him lynched anyway.

Why does the weaker of the two scum help cement sjg's death at the end instead of just not voting?

I see in your response to SF you're arguing jordan could have simply sat on the sidelines. I disagree. While Jordan's contributions haven't been as numerous as others, he's been an active presence and has yet to miss a vote. If he sits back and DOESN'T vote sjg, sjg goes down cause his scum chum wasn't willing to vote for him even out of self preservation. Also remember at this point that everyone is expecting you to come in and continue your "sjg is town" stance. That means movement by any of the other sjg voters still saves sjg.

None of this makes sense to me right now. With a sjg + Jordan team, they had way more options than voting one another on day 2. Jordan isn't a particularly experienced player, but sjg had enough time to tell him what actions he should take over the course of the game. Why does sjg instruct him to kill sjg? I don't see how any of this can realistically occur unless you believe sjg is not good at the game or he didn't possess time to instruct jordan. Neither of those conditions seemed to have been met this game. I don't comprehend how Jordan is really your best vote today.

They didn't at the end. And they tried other options right up until then.

[Zoomzip]

OK, so... a few things.

I'm actually okay with a No Elimination vote if we blue vote Jordan. I understand Harb's point about it probably being okay to dip into the Large's if possible, but right now I am sort of playing this game by the book from a town perspective. It's why I didn't stomp Jordan last night, despite being tempted to. Right now this town is overall doing well, I don't want to needlessly accelerate games because we feel pretty good. Time is usually a town positive asset.

Also, Harb's vote on Jordan in response to Harb's questions is good. Best evidence I've seen D3 emerge through engagement. But let me address HAppy's concerns:

First, I do think yesterday was scum v. scum, and I do think both mafia are non-large. We have two consecutive killess nights. If there is deception on size, it will out itself shortly. The simplest explanation is the mafia badly missed on anticipating the town size selection choices. I know I had a Large-Large theory on D1, because it is what I would have recommended as a mafia sided player. But the fact that SJG was small shows I was wrong, and so my unthinkable double not-large thoughts on D1 are overtaken by the evidence of events.

On the vote itself, it's really important to understand how it shook out. We were kind of meandering around, but at around 5 hours to deadline, here is where we are:

SJG11 (1): Justy
Jordan767 (3): shadowfriend1, UpsideDownChuck, Zoomzip
Justy (1): Harb
Happymeal (1): SJG11
UpsidedownChuck (1): Jordan767
ShadowFriend1 (1): Happymeal

So, we are in end phases of D2. Jordan767 is our lynch leader on a day with not much movement, SF1 puts him into the lead in the middle of D2 and he's the first to 3 votes that day.

At this point, barring something dramatic (heh, heh), Jordan767 is going to be eliminated. There is no coherent counter to that. Note that SJG is not on the lynch -- he and Jordan are both trying to push into the large -- Jordan on Chuck, and SJG on Happymeal. Now, SJG has a bit of a problem if Jordan is scum -- we're about to lynch his partner and there's no real appetite for anything else. He still wants the large lynch, but senses he can't get it. But note the equivocation on the vote:

I'm going for Jordan over justy because justy seems less interested in self-preservation than Jordan is. Thus, justy's play aligns less with what I'd expect of Mafia in the day even though I do think that Jordan's position is a reasonable one for a townie to hold, or certainly not a ridiculous position for a Mafia to hold.

This is not "I want to lynch Jordan" -- this is a safe, let me have it all ways vote that sort of gets around the fact that people are starting to townread Justy. If Jordan is scum, it is the vote he needs to cast to get on the right side of the lynch and potentially preserve himself for D3. If Jordan is town, zoomZip and SF1 are there to take the fall for killing another townie. Either way, it's the best play available to him as scum.

Then things move on him. A few hours later (and only 2 hours to deadline) I suddenly move to SJG with Justy and we have a counter in place to Jordan. Harb is wondering what will happen, but he moves to kill SJG with me, and momentum to SJG is moving strong. I mean, we can expect Jordan will self-defend, so Harb's move essentially puts 4 on SJG at that point (and Harb has plenty of narrative space to move to Jordan if he wants). Now, Harb is openly aware that I may switch (and I'm concerned I may be lynching a townie -- I am not reading SJG as pure scum until the reveal, which is part of the reason I like Jordan's death curse on Chuck), but he makes a killing call anyways. Good. Jordan now, with limited time, has to defend.

In this time period, we get some interesting dialog. Jordan's vote on SJG is pure self-defense:

Votes are 3-3-1-1 right now. There isn't really a good dog pile candidate. I'll vote sjg as self-preservation, but I'm not happy about it. Still, 4-3-1. I'm willing (personally) to give the situation some time to develop before dogpiling.

Emphases added. In a scum v. scum race, this is a nightmare now for the scum team. So Jordan defends, but expresses a desire for a counter-move other than SJG, and really hopes one develops with time.

Similarly, Harb is looking for a way not to kill SJG, and appeals to SJG for an alternative. He gets this:

Grrrr.... I'm really not seeing a pro-active sjg case here.

SJG, you around? Tell me I'm wrong on Jordan in a convincing manner?

Wish I could but I don't have anything.

The best I have is that I was around and working harder earlier today and throughout yesterday while Jordan's more in that peripheral/active lurky zone. Not sure I can really describe that as a case though.

Neither SJG nor Jordan really want to vote on each other. They are both being forced. We know SJG was scum. We know scum would have loved to breach the firewall D2. Both wanted that outcome, and were looking to see if they could get an entrypoint. SJG is commiting to getting Jordan eliminated D3+. Jordian ditto on SJG. Scum v. scum is a reasonable interpretation of this. Explains the vote both made, the tepid hunting from both at the end, and the lack of kills. Balance of probabilities -- Jordan is SJG's partner. Could it be a well-hid large? Possibly. But it's not the best vote you can make on a read of the evidence before us.
Jordan767

[Zoomzip]

And I see Harb getting some of this thinking into thread before me. Cool.

[shadowface]

What? They tried? What did they try? Sjg voted one time for Happymeal. Jordan votes for UDC. How does this make any sense? The two scum players decided to basically vote and keep their votes on players who were gaining no momentum what so ever. It's really weird how you believe this. The town didn't really want them at the time. About 3 town members had their votes on Jordan at the time. 1 on sf, 1 on justy, 1 on sjg. This is not decisively sjg vs. jordan at the time yet sjg somehow thinks that jordan is the best vote to make.

It's not so easy for the scum to switch votes, though. You can't just say, this other large player looks like a fun lynch and expect that it's not going to come back to bite you when they flip town.
Also, even if you think their other lynches didn't have momentum, there weren't even any town-lynches with momentum at the end of the day for the team to join.

Happymeal, I think you conceptualize the scum as being much more honest and principled than they actually are. Scum just want to blend in, and doing any of the actions that you think they would have above would only have made them or their buddy stand out as scummy. Scum specifically behave to avoid doing that during the day, prioritized usually above everything else, even busing their buddies or dying.

Like I said before, I don't think busing really occurs as often as you think it does. You got bussed as scum one time and now you apply it to every scenario? I'll say one thing, it's pretty rare for me to see scum bus one another. I play as town a lot because it's just the card I draw, but scum really only bus when things go horribly wrong. Things were not horribly wrong at the time which is why I find it weird especially with an experienced player like sjg who I think could take advantage of the scenario.

You're just wrong here. Scum bus each other all the time. If they didn't, being off of a scum lynch would be a great scumtell. It isn't, because we know that scum do this too, specifically to avoid being seen as scum. But certainly you can't claim that being on a scum lynch is a town tell... it is far too easy for the mafia to do that.

You act like I'm basing this on one anecdote - I've been scum with buddies twice, and not for a moment during either game did I try to keep my buddies alive during the day phase anymore than I would have as a regular player. In True Love I bused my scumbuddy sjg right in the middle of the pack, IIRC, once it was the appropriate move.
I'm curious, how many games have you played as scum?

[shadowface]

+1 to what Zoomzip and Harb are saying. This is a beautiful lynch.

[shadowface]

I'm not about to vote for my own mislynch.

UpsideDownChuck for being unwilling to follow already-in-motion town plans and not justifying reads well.

Wow, that is such a solid case.

[Harb]

I'm actually okay with a No Elimination vote if we blue vote Jordan. I understand Harb's point about it probably being okay to dip into the Large's if possible, but right now I am sort of playing this game by the book from a town perspective. It's why I didn't stomp Jordan last night, despite being tempted to. Right now this town is overall doing well, I don't want to needlessly accelerate games because we feel pretty good. Time is usually a town positive asset

If all we were looking at was acceleration, I would agree. But I think the advantages offered by lynching Jordan if he's our choice are pretty significant. In particular I'm looking at the daisy chain. justy catching a size lying scum actually isn't that big a deal I think. If we maintain the daisy chain, we should be catching any size liars tonight anyway. I think I'm the only one who hasn't been stomped twice, is that right? That certainty, which even justy's death in the night doesn't bring, seems worthwhile. As we whittle away at the numbers, a small potentially hiding in the larges becomes more dangerous. Frankly I would like the possibility dealt with sooner rather than later.

[Harb]

I'm not about to vote for my own mislynch.

UpsideDownChuck for being unwilling to follow already-in-motion town plans and not justifying reads well.

To rephrase SF's comment to something that might actually encourage Jordan to participate if he's town:

Jordan, is Chuck your best read for scum or the one you think has the best chance of other people voting for him? You say you're voting him because he's unwilling to follow town plans, and he's not justifying his reads well. Why does that make him more likely scum than town? Is there a town explanation for his actions? What are you referring to when you say he's not justifying his reads well?

If I'm looking for reasons to think you're town, showing me you're active an invested in smoking out the remaining scum is the first step.

[Happymeal]

It seems the town has already reached a consensus so I'll just play along with it. I think regardless of what I argue, it's unlikely to change the perspective of everyone here. Is there a way to end the day quickly? I'll agree to either lynching or stomping Jordan, I don't really care at this point. If people are wrong, we still have a 4 to 1 ratio, but I think the information provided by forcing people into a scenario that isn't quite this simple (just vote or stomp Jordan) might be more beneficial for us later down the road. Preferably, I'd like insurance and not have a conceivable future where we mislynch several targets if we are wrong, but I suppose the general perspective is that of just lynching Jordan. I'll agree to it.

Jordan767